Facile method for the selective recover of Gd and Pr from LCD screen wastes using ultrasound-assisted leaching

Abstract

Rare earth elements (REE) are essential for the production of technological devices. However, their high demand and low availability, together with an increase in electronic waste generation, compel the development of efficient, economic and green methods for recovering these elements from electronic waste. In this work, a facile method for selective recovering of REE from Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) screen wastes, employing ultrasound assisted leaching is presented. The screen wastes were milled and sieved to pass through − 325 mesh sieve. The milled powder was summited to ultrasound-assisted leaching in aqueous medium, at room temperature (25 °C) and pH 6 for 60 minutes. Subsequently, a magnetic separation was applied into the leach residue. ICP was employed to quantitatively analyze the composition of the LCD powders and the effectiveness of the extraction process. SEM-EDS allowed qualitatively analyzing the chemical composition of the solid materials. The results shown that the LCD screen wastes are formed, mainly, by amorphous oxides of Si, Fe, In, Sn and REE. The amount of Gd and Pr in the wastes were 93 mg/kg and 24 mg/kg, respectively; It represents enough reason to recover it. X-ray diffraction analysis of the magnetic portion of the leaching residue, confirmed the presence of an amorphous phase together with crystalline metallic iron alloy. The magnetic behavior, obtained by Vibration Sample Magnetometry, helped to understand the nature of the residues. The formation of this metallic alloy is attributed to the effect of high power ultrasonic during the leaching. It was confirmed that the magnetic residues concentrates and recovers 87 wt. % of Gd and 85 wt. % of Pr of the total content of these REE in the magnetic residue. Therefore, ultrasound-assisted leaching is a selective and facile method for recovering Gd and Pr from a screen wastes.