LEACHING KINETICS OF POWDERED PCB OF MOBILE PHONES IN HNO3 MEDIUM

Debarati Das, Mahua Ghosh Chaudhuri

Abstract: Printed circuit board (PCB) of mobile phones is leached in nitric acid (HNO3) to extract the valuable metals present in PCB into the leaching solution. PCB powder is characterized by XRD analysis before and after leaching to identify the metallic phases present in it. It is found that precious metals gold (Au), silver (Ag), platinum (Pt), copper (Cu), lead (Pb), nickel (Ni) are present in the powder PCB before leaching. The leached solution is characterized by atomic absorption spectrometer (AAS). 0.0228% Pb, 0.0448% Fe and 0.047% Cu are extracted in the solution. The leaching kinetics is also studied. Activation energy of the reaction is calculated 23 KJ which suggest that the leaching reaction is diffusion controlled

Keywords: PCB, Leaching Kinetics, XRD Analysis, AAS

DOI: https://doi.org/10.15623/ijret.2016.0503057