Recovery of copper from electroplating sludge using integrated bipolar membrane electrodialysis and electrodeposition

Yaoxing Liu; Mingzhi Lv; Xiaoyun Wu; Jianguo Ding; Liping Dai; Hun Xue; Xin Ye; Riyao Chen; Rui Ding; Jianxi Liu; Bart Van der Bruggen

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2023.03.154

Recovery of copper from electroplating sludge using integrated bipolar membrane electrodialysis and electrodeposition

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2023 Jul 15:642:29-40. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2023.03.154. Epub 2023 Mar 25.

Authors

Yaoxing Liu¹, Mingzhi Lv², Xiaoyun Wu³, Jianguo Ding², Liping Dai⁴, Hun Xue², Xin Ye⁴, Riyao Chen², Rui Ding², Jianxi Liu², Bart Van der Bruggen⁵

Affiliations

¹ College of Environmental and Resource Sciences, College of Carbon Neutral Modern Industry, Fujian Key Laboratory of Pollution Control & Resource Reuse, Fujian Normal University, Fujian Province, Fuzhou 350007, China. Electronic address: yxliu19830218@fjnu.edu.cn.
² College of Environmental and Resource Sciences, College of Carbon Neutral Modern Industry, Fujian Key Laboratory of Pollution Control & Resource Reuse, Fujian Normal University, Fujian Province, Fuzhou 350007, China.
³ School of Safety and Environment, Fujian Chuanzheng Communications College, Fujian Province, Fuzhou 350007, China.
⁴ Key Laboratory of Urban Pollutant Conversion, Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xiamen 361021, China.
⁵ Department of Chemical Engineering, ProcESS-Process Engineering for Sustainable System, KU Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200F, B-3001 Leuven, Belgium; Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, Tshwane University of Technology, Private Bag X680, Pretoria 0001, South Africa.

PMID: 37001455
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2023.03.154

Abstract

Electroplating sludge, though a hazardous waste, is a valuable resource as it contains a large amount of precious metals. In this study, copper was recovered from the electroplating sludge using a technology that integrates bipolar membrane electrodialysis (BMED) and electrodeposition. The experimental results showed that Cu²⁺ in the electroplating sludge was successfully separated and concentrated in the BMED system without adding any chemical reagents; the concentrated Cu²⁺ was recovered in the form of copper foil in an electrodeposition system. Current density clearly affected the Cu²⁺ separation and concentration in the BMED system; the current density, solution pH and Cu²⁺ concentration drastically affected the Cu²⁺ electrodeposition ratio and the morphology and purity of the obtained copper foil. Under the optimised experimental conditions, 96.4% of Cu²⁺ was removed from the electroplating sludge and 65.4% of Cu²⁺ was recovered in the foil form. On increasing the number of electroplating sludge compartments from one to two and three, the current efficiency for recovering Cu²⁺ increased from 17.4% to 28.5% and 35.2%, respectively, and the specific energy consumption decreased from 11.3 to 6.7 and 5.3 kW h/kg of copper, respectively. The purity of the copper foil was higher than 99.5%. Thus, the integrated technology can be regarded as an effective method for recovering copper from electroplating sludge.

Keywords: Bipolar membrane; Electrodeposition; Electrodialysis; Electroplating sludge; Recovery.