Umudike Journal of Engineering and Technology

The study used an electrolytic method to recover copper and silver from abandoned printed circuit boards. Non-target metals were removed in a dissolution bath of 500ml of tetraoxosulphate V1 acid diluted with 5 litres of distilled water and the target metals of copper and silver were dissolved in aqua regis solutions of 75ml hydrochloric acid and 25ml of Nitric acid diluted in 100ml of water respectively and were then recovered from the solutions via an electrolytic process. The maximum dissolution time for the metals was 5 hours and quantities of metals recovered were 14.8g and 7.2g of copper and silver respectively. A regression model was developed to establish the relationship between process time and quantity of metals recovery by electrolysis. It was found that the quantities of metals recovered depended on the process time.