Investigation of an electrochemical method for separation of copper, indium, and gallium from pretreated cigs solar cell waste materials
Journal article, 2015

Recycling of the semiconductor material copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS) is important to ensure a future supply of indium and gallium, which are relatively rare and therefore expensive elements. As a continuation of our previous work, where we recycled high purity selenium from CIGS waste materials, we now show that copper and indium can be recycled by electrodeposition from hydrochloric acid solutions of dissolved selenium-depleted material. Suitable potentials for the reduction of copper and indium were determined to be -0.5 V and -0.9 V (versus the Ag/AgCl reference electrode), respectively, using cyclic voltammetry. Electrodeposition of first copper and then indium from a solution containing the dissolved residue from the selenium separation and ammonium chloride in 1 M HCl gave a copper yield of 100.1 ± 0.5% and an indium yield of 98.1 ± 2.5%. The separated copper and indium fractions contained no significant contamination of the other elements. Gallium remained in solution together with a small amount of indium after the separation of copper and indium and has to be recovered by an alternative method since electrowinning from the chloride-rich acid solution was not effective.

indium

materials

Article

ammonium chloride

gallium

copper

silver

diselenide

chloride

silver chloride

selenium

electrode

cyclic potentiometry

electrochemistry

hydrochloric acid

unclassified drug

selenide

waste

Author

Anna Gustafsson

Chalmers, Chemical and Biological Engineering, Industrial Materials Recycling

F. Bjorefors

Uppsala University

Britt-Marie Steenari

Chalmers, Chemical and Biological Engineering, Industrial Materials Recycling

Christian Ekberg

Chalmers, Chemical and Biological Engineering, Industrial Materials Recycling

The Scientific World Journal

1537744x (eISSN)

Vol. 2015 494015

Driving Forces

Sustainable development

Subject Categories

Chemical Sciences

Areas of Advance

Materials Science

DOI

10.1155/2015/494015

More information

Latest update

2/22/2023