Analysis of thermodynamic behaviour of valuable elements and slag structure during e-waste processing through copper smelting

Waste of electronics and electrical equipment and other end-of-life high technology products can be viewed as resources for metals, as they do not only contain the common metals but also trace valuable and rare elements. Every elements have different thermodynamic properties that govern the partitioning behaviour during the process. The present study investigated the thermodynamic behaviour of germanium, palladium and tantalum metals and determine their distribution-ratio in slag-metal equilibrium reaction during black copper processing. Moreover, it also examined the ferrous-calcium-silicate slag structure using vibrational spectroscopy and correlation between the degree of polymerization and distribution-ratio was developed using multiple regression analysis.