OPTIMISATION AND KINETIC STUDIES ON SILVER LEACHING FROM WASTE PRINTED CIRCUIT BOARDS IN SELECTED GREEN SOLVENTS
Abubakar Osafo Kantanka, Benetta Koomson, Emmanuel Mensah Azogba
Department of Materials Engineering, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana; E-mail: mateng@gmail.com
Corresponding author: abubakarosafo11@gmail.com
ABSTRACT. Organic acids are being explored as biodegradable lixiviants for extracting valuable metals from various sources with a lower environmental footprint. However, studies on using organic acids for silver extraction from waste printed circuit boards ( remain limited, particularly regarding process parameters and leaching kinetics. This study employed response surface methodology ( with central composite design ( to optimise acetic and citric acids for silver leaching from WPCBs. Key parameters included are temperature, lixiviant concentration, and leaching time. Kinetic behavior was analysed using Arrhenius and shrinkage core models. RSM CCD analyses indicated that the quadratic model effectively predicted silver leaching percentages across the tested factors, with significant effects noted for most parameters, except temperature in the acetic acid system. Optimal silver recovery was 11.48% for acetic acid (38.8° 2.5 M, 4 h) and 15.2% for citric acid (37.7° 1 M, 1.5 h). Kinetic studies showed leaching was diffusion controlled, with activation energies of 13.13 kJ/mol for acetic acid and 3.3 kJ/mol for citric acid. Overall, this study sets the foundation for a scalable and environmentally sustainable silver recovery from WPCB.
Keywords: silver leaching, citric acid, acetic acid, response surface methodology, kinetic studies
https://doi.org/10.58903/dw18921065
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