Abstract:
Gold is one of the highly demanded precious metals which have applications in jewellery,
investment, electronic and medical industries due to its unique chemical and physical
characteristics. Although the demand for gold is continuously increasing, gold producers
have failed to meet the existing demand for gold through gold mining. Therefore, seeking
out secondary sources of gold is vital. Since gold is one of the major metals used in the
electronic industry, e-waste has enormous potential as a secondary source of gold. This
study outlines the recovery potential of gold and several other valuable metals quantitatively
in Printed Circuit Board (PCB) components of end-of-life computers, namely,
microprocessors and Integrated Circuits (ICs), plated connectors in network cards, and
plated metallic pins. The research workflow consists of a sample pre-processing and an acid
leaching (digestion) process followed by a sample analysis process using an Inductively
Coupled Plasma - Mass Spectrometer (ICP-MS). According to the results, the recovery
potential of gold is significant in every e-waste component tested under this study.
Citation:
Munagamage, S.P., Wickramasinghe, B.G.W.M.D.H.K., Asvini, I., Dissanayake, D.M.D.O.K., Dushyantha, N.P. (2021). Hydrometallurgical approach to investigate the recovery potential of gold available in waste PCBS. In D.M.D.O.K. Dissanayake & C.L. Jayawardena (Eds.), Proceedings of International Symposium on Earth Resources Management & Environment 2021 (pp. 114-119). Department of Earth Resources Engineering, University of Moratuwa. https://uom.lk/sites/default/files/ere/files/ISERME%202021%20Proceedings_2.pdf