EVALUATION OF THE ABILITY TO SEPARATE COPPER FROM MOBILE PHONE WASTE BY PYROMETALLURGICAL PROCESS COMBINED WITH HYDROMETALLURGICAL PROCESS

Abstract

The recovery of metals in mobile phone waste is a matter of concern due to environmental issues and the increasingly depleted metal resources. There are many methods to separate metal from mobile phone waste such as: pyrometallurgical method, hydrometallurgical method, electrometallurgical method.... Promoting the advantages of pyrometallurgical method and hydrometallurgical method, the article presents a copper separation process that minimizes the release of harmful gases to the environment, but effectively recovers copper, which is a combination of pyrometallurgical method and hydrometallurgical method. Pyrometallurgical stage: mobile phone waste is chopped and calcined at 750 ^oC in a closed furnace that can recover the released gas in 2 hours. Hydrometallurgical stage: the solid is dissolved in a solution of sulfuric acid (H₂SO₄) in the presence of hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂). The factors affecting the copper separation process were studied such as H₂SO₄ concentration, H₂O₂ concentration, solid/liquid ratio and temperature showing that H₂SO₄ 4M, H₂O₂ 15%, solid-liquid ratio 0.025 and the temperature 40 ^oC, the copper (II) sulfate (CuSO₄) solution obtained has a high concentration with separation efficiency of 71.64% after 1 hour.