• Clean Technology
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.270-278
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• 2020

Palladium (Pd) has been widely used in various industrial applications such as jewelry, catalyst, and dental materials despite its limited resources. It has been gaining attention to recover Pd with high purity from the spent materials. This study investigated the optimum conditions for the leaching and recovery of metallic Pd. The leaching parameters are HCl concentration, temperature, time, concentration of oxidants, and pulp density. 97.2% of Pd leaching efficiency was obtained in 3 M HCl with 3 vol% oxidants at 80℃ for 60 min. The ratio of hydrogen peroxide to sodium hypochlorite played a critical role in the leaching efficiency due to the supply of Cl- ions in the leachate. Moreover, the complete recovery of Pd in the leachate was achieved at 80℃ with 0.3 formic acid/leachate after adjusting the pH value of 7. This situation was ascribed to the decomposition of formic acid into hydrogen gas and carbon dioxide at 80℃. ICP-AES and XRD characterized the recovered Pd powder, and the purity of the recovered powder was found to be 99.6%. Consequently, the recovered Pd powder with high purity could be used in circuits, catalyst precursors, and surgical instruments.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.33-41
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• 2023

Herein, we selectively recovered Zn and produced ZnSO₄ from electric arc furnace dust using a hydrometallurgical process. The analysis of the properties of the electric arc furnace dust revealed that the Fe content (9.9%) was relatively low while the Mn content (19%) was high as compared to the composition of general dust. Therefore, an appropriate hydrometallurgical process was designed based on the properties of the raw materials. In the leaching process involving the use of 1.6 M sulfuric acid and 20% solid-liquid ratio at 60℃ for 1 h, 85% of the Zn and Mn got dissolved while the Fe was not leached. To selectively recover Zn, a solvent extraction process using D2EHPA as the extractant was chosen, and 99% of the Zn was extracted using 0.8 M D2EHPA with 32% saponification and an O/A ratio of 2 using counter-current 3-stage extraction. Mn was entirely scrubbed with an aqueous sulfuric acid solution of pH 1.5. Finally, Zn was concentrated and stripped using 1.5 M sulfuric acid at an O/A ratio of 4 using counter-current 4-stage stripping. The stripping solution contained 40 g/L of Zn, and 99.9% of ZnSO₄∙H₂O was obtained by vacuum distillation.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.58-68
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• 2024

Critical minerals such as nickel, cobalt and lithium, are known as materials for cathodic active materials of lithium ion batteries. The consumption of the minerals is expected to grow with increasing the demands of electric vehicles, resulting from carbon neutrality. Especially, the demand for LIB (lithium ion battery) recycling is expected to increase to meet the supply of nickel, cobalt and lithium for LIB. The recycling of EOL (end-of-life) LIB can be achieved by leaching EOL LIB using inorganic acid such as HCl, HNO₃ and H₂SO₄, which are regarded as hazardous materials. In the present study, the potential use of MSA (Methanesulfonic acid), as an alternative lixiviant replacing sulfuric acid was investigated. In addition, leaching behaviors of NCM black mass leaching with MSA was also investigated by studying various leaching factors such as chemical concentration, leaching time, pulp density (P/D) and temperatures. The leaching efficiency of nickel (Ni), cobalt (Co), lithium (Li), and manganese (Mn) from LIB was enhanced by increasing concentration of lixiviant and reductant, leaching time and temperature. The maximum leaching of the metals was above 99% at 80℃. In addition, MSA can replace sulfuric acid to recover Ni, Co, Li, Mn from NCM black mass.