On the Kinetic Behavior of Recycling Precious Metals (Au, Ag, Pt, and Pd) Through Copper Smelting Process

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Volume Title

A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä

Date

2021-09

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Mcode

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Language

en

Pages

12
920-931

Series

Journal of Sustainable Metallurgy, Volume 7, issue 3

Abstract

The recycling and recovery of precious metals from secondary materials, such as waste-printed circuit boards, are an important area of circular economy research due to the limited existing resources and increasing amount of e-waste produced by the rapid development of technology. In this study, the kinetic behavior of precious metals Au, Ag, Pt, and Pd between copper matte and iron-silicate slag was investigated at a typical flash smelting temperature of 1300 °C in both air and argon atmospheres. SEM–EDS, EPMA, and LA-ICP-MS-advanced analysis methods were used for sample characterization. The results indicate that precious metals favor the matte phase over slag, and the deportment to matte occurred swiftly within a short time after the system had reached the experimental temperature. With increasing contact times, the precious metals were distributed increasingly into the sulfide matte. The distribution coefficients, based on experimentally measured element concentrations, followed the order of palladium > platinum > gold > silver in both air and argon, and the matte acted as an efficient collector of these precious metals. The obtained results can be applied to industrial copper matte smelting processes, and they also help in upgrading CFD models to simulate the flash smelting process more precisely.

Description

Funding Information: This work was financially supported by the Aalto University School of Chemical Engineering and the Business Finland financed SYMMET project [Grant number 3891/31/2018]. Thanks to Outotec Research Center (Pori, Finland) for their contribution. This study utilized the Academy of Finland’s RawMatTERS Finland Infrastructure (RAMI) based jointly at Aalto University, GTK, and VTT in Espoo. Xingbang Wan would also like to acknowledge the financial support from the China Scholarship Council [Grant Number 201706370096]. Publisher Copyright: © 2021, The Author(s).

Keywords

Distribution coefficients, Flash smelting, Iron-silicate slag, Recycling, WPCB

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Citation

Wan, X, Kleemola, L, Klemettinen, L, O’Brien, H, Taskinen, P & Jokilaakso, A 2021, ' On the Kinetic Behavior of Recycling Precious Metals (Au, Ag, Pt, and Pd) Through Copper Smelting Process ', Journal of Sustainable Metallurgy, vol. 7, no. 3, pp. 920-931 . https://doi.org/10.1007/s40831-021-00388-6