<
https://reneweconomy.com.au/researchers-froth-over-new-solar-recycling-method-that-recovers-99-pct-of-silver-from-used-panels/>
"A new take on a widely used mining technique called froth flotation can
recover “virtually all” of the metallic silver contained within an end-of-life
solar panel, researchers from the University of Newcastle say.
The newly-refined method builds on work done at the Centre for Critical
Minerals and Urban Mining (CRITIUM) last year, which got a 97 per cent recovery
rate from a single batch.
This time, by continuously feeding a wet slurry of ground up solar panels into
a tank over 90 minutes, they were able to lift this recovery rate by almost two
percent.
Averaged across the whole 90 minutes, they recovered 98.74 per cent of the
silver. But during just over a quarter of the time the system hit a 100 per
cent recovery rate.
“Our earlier small-scale batch research proved flotation could recover silver
from solar panels,” said co-author and CRITIUM deputy director Mahshid Firouzi
in a statement.
“This latest work demonstrates that the process can operate continuously at a
much larger scale with nearly 100 per cent silver recovery, bringing us closer
to commercial implementation.”
The three-strong Newcastle team crushed up the parts of the panel they needed
and ground it into fine particles. They then used a method from the mining
industry called flotation, which uses water, air bubbles and a small amount of
standard floatation reagents to float valuable metals to the surface while
waste materials sink.
One benefit is that they don’t need to use acid.
The latest data is being presented in a preprint article, an overview of the
findings before it’s gone through peer review or been published in a journal,
so it could still be subject to changes or corrections.
But the headline data could be positive news for an industry which is facing
shortages of silver supplies."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
