In every electronic device, which later becomes waste (electronic waste / e–waste), there are various metals, including precious metals. Among them are gold, silver as well as platinum, palladium, ruthenium and rhodium. Since the amounts of e-waste are increasing year by year, they have become particularly interesting, as they contain a higher amount of precious metals than in classic mining. In order to obtain precious metals, various methods of recycling electronic waste have been developed. We know the pyrometallurgical, hydrometallurgical and biometallurgical process of obtaining precious metals. In all these processes, there are advantages and disadvantages of this type of process.
The diploma thesis presents the determination of precious metals in various samples of electronic waste. Inductively coupled plasma by optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES), was used to determine such metals. In addition to the determination of precious metals in the samples, we had also compared the two methods of digestion. Namely, the classic digestion with aqua regia and the acid digestion with a microwave oven and comparing whether the digestion also affects the determination of the precious metal content in the samples.
In the diploma work, we determined which electronic waste contains the most precious metals and which and whether the digestion methods of the sample also affect the final results. We found that platinum was not detected in all samples, regardless of the digestion, and ruthenium was not detected in any individual sample. The highest gold content was detected in mobile phones regardless of the digestion. In individual samples of mobile phones we detected approximately 2,5 % to 4,6 % gold per individual printed circuit board with classic breakdown, and with MW breakdown each individual printed circuit board contained approximately 1 % to 3,8 % of gold. We also found that the type of digestion also affect the final results. This is most noticeable in the final results of silver in the samples, e.g. with classic digestion, an average 3,5 % of silver, while with acid digestion with MW, an average of 0,04 % silver is present in the sample analysed by ICP-OES.
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