Recovery of Copper from Bio-leaching Solutions of Waste Printed Circuit Boards Waste by Ion Exchange

According to the properties of bioleaching solutions of printed circuit boards (PCBs), copper in the leaching solution were recovery by ion exchange with macroporous styrene iminodiacetic acid chelating resin D401. The bed height of resin, flow rate, pH value on copper adsorption had been studied. Work Exchange Capacity (WEC) of copper increased with increasing bed height of resin and flow rate. The copper WEC of 7.88 mg/mL can be obtained with pH 2.5 and 200 mm bed height at flow rate of 2 mL/min. More than 99.5% of copper could be eluted from loaded resin to get the copper enriched solution by 1.0 M sulphuric acid at A/R ratio 20 in at flow rate of 2 mL/min. Results of the present investigation indicated that D401 resin can efficiently recovery copper from bioleaching solution of PCBs.