Recuperación de neodimio a partir de discos duros post consumo usando ácidos orgánicos, inorgánicos y bases y el diseño de lixiviación

Abstract

Environmental pollution is increasing due to the high rate of industrial development and the eagerness of the population to acquire consumer goods, especially electrical and electronic devices, which are quickly discarded, so it is necessary to establish protocols for the responsible management of them; therefore, the objective of this research was to recover neodymium from post consumption hard drives using organic and inorganic acids and bases and designing a leaching process to minimize air and soil pollution caused by the increase of electronic waste. The methodology implemented had a quantitative and qualitative approach, 5 acids were used as leaching agents such as hydrochloric, nitric, sulfuric, oxalic and citric acid to perform the acid leaching methodology and thus determine the best leaching agent and the best working conditions (concentration, time and percentage of solids) by means of solutions and constant values. Through this methodology it was possible to determine that the best leaching agent to recover neodymium was sulfuric acid, with a concentration of 3 M, a time of 24h and a solids percentage of 0.1%. In this context it is concluded that treating with oxalic acid at high concentrations does not provide good neodymium recovery due to its low solubility; on the other hand, with sulfuric acid it does recover at high concentrations yielding the highest neodymium recovery of 72.72% with a rushton turbine leaching tank system and a toriespherical lid, thus reducing environmental pollution.