Copper fractal growth during recycling from waste printed circuit boards by slurry electrolysis

Abstract

• Copper fractal growth was observed during WPCBs recycling by slurry electrolysis.

• Dendrites fractal growth could be controlled by additive during electrodeposition.

• Additive was proved to be an effective way to refine the copper crystal.

• These findings contribute to enrich the study of slurry electrolysis.

Superfine copper particles could be directly prepared from waste printed circuit boards by slurry electrolysis. Meanwhile, copper fractal growth could be observed. To better understand this phenomenon, the factors that affect copper dendrites in a point-cathode system were discussed in detail. These results showed that the fractal degree of copper dendrites increased as the increase of applied voltage and the decrease of copper sulfate and gelatin concentrations. Sodium lauryl sulfate and hydrochloric acid concentrations could not significantly impact the fractal degree of copper dendrites, while gelatin concentration could. The minimum copper fractal dimension was 1.069 when gelatin and copper sulfate concentration was 120 mg/L and 0.1 mol/L, respectively with an applied voltage of 11 V. Moreover, the results diffusion-limited aggregation model demonstrated that particle translational speed, particle numbers and binding probability significantly affected copper dendrite patterns. The scanning electron microscopy results indicated that the three additives greatly affected the refinement of the copper crystal. These findings contribute to enrich the theoretical study on metals recovery from e-waste by slurry electrolysis.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

Dendritic copper / Fractal growth / WPCBs / Slurry electrolysis

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