• Resources Recycling
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.76-82
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• 2021

The separation of palladium from crude metal, which is obtained from electronic waste using pyrometallurgy was achieved through electrolysis. This was done to recover high-purity copper. The oxidation potentials of these metals are a fundamental part of the analysis of electrolytic separation of palladium and impurity metals. To achieve this, copper, iron, and nickel were dissolved in the electrolyte, and palladium and aluminum were found to be recoverable from anode slime. During the electrolysis for palladium separation, palladium was present in the anode slime and was obtained with a recovery of 97.46 % indicating almost no loss. 4N-grade copper was recovered from the electrodeposition layer at the cathode.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.3-14
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• 2019

Copper is one of the first metals utilized by humankind about 11,500 years ago. But copper is not plentiful metallic element in the earth's crust. Copper has a high thermal and electric conductivity and is relatively corrosion resistant. In principle copper is virtually 100 % recyclable as an element without loss of quality. The recycling of copper scrap reduces the energy consumption and environmental burden, comparing to the primary metal production. Currently, approximately 30% of the global copper supply provides by recycling. Copper scrap is smelted in primary and secondary smelter. Type of furnace and process steps depend on the quality and grade of scrap. Depending on copper content of the secondary raw material, refining is required, which is usually done through electrorefining. This work provides an overview of the primary copper production and recycling process.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.3-14
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• 2019

Lead is one of the common non-ferrous metals used in modern industry. The usage of lead continues to increase and has risen from 5 million tonnes per year worldwide in the 1970s to 11 million tonnes in the 2010s. In principle lead is virtually 100 % recyclable as an element without loss of quality. The recycling of lead scrap reduces the energy consumption and environmental burden, comparing to the primary metal production. Therefore production of secondary lead from scrap has been steadily growing and at present it meets approximately 60 % of usage worldwide. Lead scrap (mainly lead-acid battery) is smelted in primary and secondary smelter. Most secondary lead smelting were performed in a shaft-type furnace (blast furnace), rotary furnace and reverberatory furnace. The lead bullion is either cast into ingots and re-melted in refining kettles or refining is performed on the hot lead bullion immediately after production. This work provides an overview of the primary lead production and recycling process.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.3-13
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• 2021

Nickel is widely used due to its excellent toughness, malleability and enhanced corrosion resistance. Therefore, nickel is indispensable in our daily lives, and it is widely used in basic to advanced applications such as stainless steel, super alloys and electronic devices. Recently, nickel has been widely used as the major material in secondary batteries and capacitors. The use of nickel continues to rise and has increased from 800 thousand tonnes per year worldwide in the 1970s to about 2 million tonnes in the 2010s. However, nickel is a representative rare metal and ranks 23rd among the abundant elements in the earth's crust. This study reviews the current status of the nickel smelting processes as well as the trend in production amount and use. Nickel is extracted by a wide variety of smelting methods depending on the type of ore. These smelting methods are essential for the development of new recycling processes that can extract nickel from secondary nickel resources.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.27-39
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• 2022

The global demand for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) has been continuously increasing since the 1990s along with the growth of the portable electronic device market. Of late, the rapid growth of the electric vehicle market has further accelerated the demand for LIBs. The demand for the LIBs is expected to surpass the supply of lithium from natural resources in the near future, posing a risk to the global lithium supply chain. Moreover, the continuous accumulation of end-of-life LIBs is expected to cause serious environmental problems. To solve these problems, recycling the spent LIBs must be viewed as a critical technological challenge that must be urgently addressed. In this study, recycling LIBs using pyrometallurgical processes and post-processes for efficient lithium recovery are briefly reviewed along with the major accomplishments in the field and current challenges.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.53 no.1
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• pp.46-52
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• 2015

A leaching kinetics was conducted for the purpose of recovery of praseodymium in sulfuric acid ($H_2SO_4$) from REE slag concentrated by the smelting reduction process in an arc furnace as a reactant. The concentration of $H_2SO_4$ was fixed at an excess ratio under the condition of slurry density of 1.500 g slag/L, 0.3 mol $H_2SO_4$, and the effect of temperatures was investigated under the condition of 30 to $80^{\circ}C$. As a result, praseodymium oxide ($Pr_6O_{11}$) existing in the slag was completely converted into praseodymium sulfate ($Pr_2(SO_4)_3{\cdot}8H_2O$) after the leaching of 5 h. On the basis of the shrinking core model with a shape of sphere, the first leaching reaction was determined by chemical reaction mechanism. Generally, the solubility of pure REEs decreases with the increase of leaching temperatures in sulfuric acid, but REE slag was oppositely increased with increasing temperatures. It occurs because the ash layer included in the slag is affected as a resistance against the leaching. By using the Arrhenius expression, the apparent activation energy of the first chemical reaction was determined to be $9.195kJmol^{-1}$. In the second stage, the leaching rate is determined by the ash layer diffusion mechanism. The apparent activation energy of the second ash layer diffusion was determined to be $19.106kJmol^{-1}$. These relative low activation energy values were obtained by the existence of unreacted ash layer in the REE slag.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.40-47
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• 2016

Nickel laterite ore is classified into two principal ore types: saprolite (silicate ore) and limonite (oxide ore). Saprolite-type ore characterized by high magnesia and silica contents is treated by pyrometallurgy process. On the other hand, limonite-type ore is subjected to hydrometallurgy process to produce nickel products. Hydrometallurgy process requires that a raw material to meet the demands that Si+Mg contents lower than 10% and Fe content over than 40%. It is therefore required that separation of saprilite-type ore to use nickel laterite ore as a raw material for hydrometallurgy process. In this study, separation of sparolite-type ore and limonite-type ore from nickel laterite ore from New Caledonia has been tried by dry classification. The results show that -5 mm size fraction and +5 mm size fraction of the nickel laterite ore contains mainly limonite-type ore and saprolite-type ore, respectively. To understand the moisture content of the raw ore on the dry classification, nickel laterite ore with different moisture contents of 23.0% and 9.1% were subjected to the dry classification. The results show that drying of the ore makes the separation more efficient as the amount of the fine product, that can be subjected to hydrometallurgy process without further separation or drying operations, was increased.

• Journal of Industrial Convergence
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• v.21 no.7
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• pp.19-27
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• 2023

As the secondary battery market expands, the process of producing laterite ore using the rotary kiln and electric furnace method is expanding worldwide. As ESG management expands, the management of air pollutants such as nitrogen oxides in exhaust gases is strengthened. The rotary kiln, one of the main facilities of the pyrometallurgy process, is a facility for drying and preliminary reduction of ore, and it generate nitrogen oxides, thus prediction of nitrogen oxide is important. In this study, LSTM for regression prediction and LightGBM for classification prediction were used to predict and then model optimization was performed using AutoML. When applying LSTM, the predicted value after 5 minutes was 0.86, MAE 5.13ppm, and after 40 minutes, the predicted value was 0.38 and MAE 10.84ppm. As a result of applying LightGBM for classification prediction, the test accuracy rose from 0.75 after 5 minutes to 0.61 after 40 minutes, to a level that can be used for actual operation, and as a result of model optimization through AutoML, the accuracy of the prediction after 5 minutes improved from 0.75 to 0.80 and from 0.61 to 0.70. Through this study, nitrogen oxide prediction values can be applied to actual operations to contribute to compliance with air pollutant emission regulations and ESG management.