Adsorção de metais (Au, Cu e Ni) presentes em lixiviados de contactores de telefones celulares

Abstract

In this work, chitin (CTN), chitosan (CTS) and activated carbon (AC) were used as adsorbents to recover metals (Au, Ni and Cu) from leachates of mobile phone wastes. The mobile phone wastes (contactors) were collected and characterized. The metals were extracted by thiourea leaching. The adsorption of metals from the leachates was studied according to the kinetic and equilibrium viewpoints. It was found that the contactors were composed by Au, Ni, Cu and Sn. The thiourea leaching provided extraction percentages of 68.6% for Au, 22.1% for Ni and 2.8% for Cu. Sn was not extracted. The leachate presented 17.5 mg L-1 of Au, 324.9 mg L-1 of Ni and 573.1 mg L-1 of Cu. The adsorption was fast, being the maximum time to attain the equilibrium of 120 min. The adsorption of Au, Ni and Cu onto CTN and AC followed the Langmuir model, while, the adsorption of these metals onto CTS followed the Freundlich model. Removal percentages higher than 95% were obtained for all metals, depending of the type and amount of adsorbent. It was demonstrated that the adsorption onto chitin, chitosan and activated carbon can be an alternative to recover valuable metals and purify the leachates of mobile phone wastes.