Statistical Evaluation of Bioleaching of Mobile Phone and Computer Waste PCBs: A Comparative Study

Abstract

Mobile phone PCBs (MPPCBs) is one of the most important targets in e-waste from both economical and environmental threat points attention to their high dense composition of metals. Because of the inhibitory effect of metals especially copper on gold recovery, for gold extraction from MPPCBs a successive two stage bioleaching using Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans and Bacillus megaterium, was applied. At the first stage, it was tried to extract copper and nickel from the waste. Then using B. megaterium the gold extraction from MPPCBs was examined. The amount of gold which extracted was about 64 g/ton while the average amount of gold in a mine in the world is about 8-10 g/ton. For both of stages the optimum condition was determined using response surface methodology.