Per: bruna elisa costa (UNIVersidade FEDeral DE OURO PRETO), matheus mello pereira (UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DE OURO PRETO), versiane albis leão (UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DE OURO PRETO)
Abstract:
Recycling of Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) is a worldwide challenge and has become a critical environmental issue. Printed Circuit Boards (PCB), which are composed of toxic materials as well as base and noble metals, constitute about 5% of the total electronic scrap generated. Solvent Extraction (SX) is one of the most widely used separation techniques due to its simplicity, fast kinetics and low environmental impact. In this sense, the objective of the current work was to present a critical review on the subject and to describe cases in which SX was applied in the selective separation of copper from liquors produced during PCB leaching. The applied set-up comprised four main steps: (i) identification, (ii) search, (iii) selection and (iv) analysis. From the searches, a volume of 17,297 articles were retrieved, and only eight (8) papers were considered relevant for the current research. In summary, among the selected studies, it was observed that with copper recoveries higher than 90% in two or three separation stages.