SPECIATION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF E-WASTE, USING ANALYTICAL TECHNIQUES

Abstract

Electronic waste (e-waste), have a high potential as a source of precious metals, since they can contain metals like silver, gold, platinum, copper, zinc, nickel, tin and others. In this paper some e-waste were characterized using several analytical techniques as Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and inductively coupled plasma (ICP) in addition to the thermodynamic study by Pourbaix diagrams of silver (Ag), gold (Au), platinum (Pt), copper (Cu), nickel (Ni), tin (Sn) and zinc (Zn); considering an average low concentration of HNO3 (10% v/v). With results of the characterization was determined that the e-waste is an ideal source for the recovery of valuable metals. Similarly, the thermodynamic studies showed that it is possible to obtain all metallic species except Pt, in a potential window of 1.45V to 2.0V vs SCE.