A Novel Designed Bioreactor for Recovering Precious Metals from Waste Printed Circuit Boards

For recovering precious metals from waste printed circuit boards (PCBs), a novel hybrid technology including physical and biological methods was developed. It consisted of crushing, corona-electrostatic separation, and bioleaching. Bioleaching process is the focus of this paper. A novel bioreactor for bioleaching was designed. Bioleaching was carried out using Pseudomonas chlororaphis. Bioleaching experiments using mixed particles of Au and Cu were performed and leachate contained 0.006 mg/L, 2823 mg/L Au(+) and Cu(2+) respectively. It showed when Cu existed, the concentrations of Au were extremely small. This provided the feasibility to separate Cu from Au. The method of orthogonal experimental design was employed in the simulation bioleaching experiments. Experimental results showed the optimized parameters for separating Cu from Au particles were pH 7.0, temperature 22.5 °C, and rotation speed 80 r/min. Based on the optimized parameters obtained, the bioreactor was operated for recovering mixed Au and Cu particles. 88.1 wt.% of Cu and 76.6 wt.% of Au were recovered. The paper contributed important information to recover precious metals from waste PCBs.