• KEPCO Journal on Electric Power and Energy
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.121-125
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• 2015

Distribution of rare earth metals (REMs) and rare valuable metals (RVMs) contents in coal ashes (fly ash, bottom ash, and pond ash) and leachate from 11 coal-fired power plants in Korea were investigated. Coal ashes and leachates were found to contain important REMs and RVMs such as Yttrium (Y) and Neodymium (Nd), which was in the range of 23~75 mg/kg. However, it still requires developing effective recovery and separation methods in order to utilize REMs and RVMs in ash and leachate. Recovery of valuable elements (Y and Nd) from various and extensive ash sources (8.21 million tons/year in 2013) can provide the existing power plants with additional profit; therefore, it can significantly improve economics of the power plants.

• Journal of Powder Materials
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.107-113
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• 2013

In this study, the microstructure and valuable metals dissolution properties of PDP waste panel powders were investigated as a function of milling parameters such as ball diameter size, milling time, and rotational speed during high-energy milling process. The complete refinement of powder could achieved at the ball diameter size of 5 mm due to sufficient impact energy and the number of collisions. With increasing milling time, the average particle size was rapidly decreased until the first 30 seconds, then decreased gradually about $3{\mu}m$ at 3 minutes and finally, increased with presence of agglomerated particles of $35{\mu}m$ at 5 minutes. Although there was no significant difference on the size of the particle according to the rotational speed from 900 to 1,100 rpm, the total valuable metals dissolution amount was most excellent at 1,100 rpm. As a result, the best milling conditions for maximum dissolving amount of valuable metals (Mg: 375 ppm, Ag 135 ppm, In: 17 ppm) in this research were achieved with 5 mm of ball diameter size, 3min of milling time, and 1,100 rpm of rotational speed.

• 한국지구물리탐사학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2003.11a
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• pp.563-568
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• 2003

Recently, the recycled amount of electric, mechanical parts, and appliances in artifacts has increased. These products use valuable rare metals such as platinum group metals and gold, which are included occasionally as additives. Rare metals are maldistributed in the world and most of them are produced in small quantities. A small amount of rare metals used in the appliances causes a large loss of rare metal resources because of the lack of an economically recycling method. The present recycling technologies including physical and chemical separation methods that are considered for recycling of electric, mechanical parts and appliances.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.60-68
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• 2012

Silicon wafer for making semiconductor devices and solar cell is used in the semiconductor and solar industry, respectively. Silicon wafer is produced by cutting with silicon ingot and sludge contains silicon occurs from cutting process. Generation of silicon sludge is increasing on developing all industry sectors which have need of semiconductor device. These days it has been widely studied for the recycling technologies of the silicon sludge from view points of economy and efficiency. In this paper, patents and paper on the recycling technologies of the silicon sludge were analyzed. The range of search was limited in the open patents of USA (US), European Union (EU), Japan (JP), Korea (KR) and SCI journals from 1982 to 2011. Patents and journals were collected using key-words searching and filtered by filtering criteria. The trends of the patents and journals was analyzed by the years, countries, companies, and technologies.

• Journal of Magnetics
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.365-369
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• 2013

Coal ash is known to contain a noticeable amount of valuable elements, including transition metals and lanthanides. Therefore it is quite actual problem to extract them for metallurgy and other applications. This paper presents the results of high gradient magnetic and mechanical separation, microscopy, element analyses and optical spectroscopy of brown coal ash taken from the combustion camera and chimney-stalk of Angren thermal power station. The separated magnetic fraction was 3.4 wt.%, where the content of Fe in ferrospheres increased to 58 wt.%. The highest contents of Fe and rare earth elements were found in the fine fractions of $50-100{\mu}m$. Optical absorption spectroscopy of water solutions of the magnetic fractions revealed $Fe^{2+}$ and $Fe^{3+}$ ions in the ratio of ~1:1. The separated coal ash could be used for cleaning of technological liquid waste by means of the high gradient magnetic field.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.73-80
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• 2020

In order to develop a process for the recovery of valuable metals from spent LiBs, solvent extraction experiments were performed to separate Cu(II) and/or Co(II) from synthetic hydrochloric acid solutions containing Li(I), Mn(II), and Ni(II). Commercial amines (Alamine 336 and Aliquat 336) were employed and the extraction behavior of the metals was investigated as a function of the concentration of HCl and extractants. The results indicate that HCl concentration affected remarkably the extraction efficiency of the metals. Only Cu(II) was selectively at 1 M HCl concentration, while both Co(II) and Cu(II) was extracted by the amines when HCl concentration was higher than 5 M, leaving the other metal ions in the raffinate. Therefore, it was possible to selectively extract either Cu(II) or Co(II)/Cu(II) by adjusting the HCl concentration.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.59-66
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• 2022

To investigate the rate-determining step of nickel, cobalt and copper electrowinning, experiments were conducted by varying the electrolyte temperature and agitation speed using a rotating disc electrode. Analyzing the rate-determining step by calculating the activation energy in the electrowinning process, it was found that nickel electrowinning is controlled by a mixed mechanism (partly by chemical reaction and partly by mass transport), cobalt is controlled by chemical reaction, and copper is controlled by mass transfer. Electrowinning of nickel, cobalt and copper was performed by varying the electrolyte temperature and agitation speed, and the comparison of the current efficiencies was used the determine the rate-determining step.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.9-18
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• 2017

Recently, the amount of electronic scrap is rapidly increasing due to the rapid growth of the electronics industry. Among the components of electronic scrap, the printed circuit board(PCB) is an important recycling target which includes common metals, precious metals, and rare metals such as gold, silver, copper, tin, nickel and so on. In Korea, however, PCB recycling technologies are mainly commercialized by some major companies, and other process quantities are not accurately counted. According to present situation, several urban mining companies, research institutes, and universities are conducting research on recovery of valuable metals from PCBs and/or reusing them as raw materials that is different from existing commercialization process developed by major companies. In this study, we analyzed not only current status of collection/disposal process and recycling of waste PCBs in Korea but also the trend of recycling technologies in order to help resource circulation from waste PCBs become more active.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.36-42
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• 2021

Spent lithium-ion batteries are treated by reduction-smelting at high temperatures to recover valuable metals. Solvent extraction and precipitation of the HCl leaching solution of reduction-smelted metallic alloys resulted in a filtrate containing Ni(II) and a small amount of Si(IV). Adsorption and precipitation experiments were conducted to recover pure Ni(II) compounds from the filtrate. Si(IV) was selectively loaded onto polyacrylamide, but this method did not efficiently filter the solution due to an increase in viscosity. The addition of Na₂CO₃ as a precipitant to the filtrate led to the simultaneous precipitation of Ni(II) and Si(IV). However, it was possible to recover nickel oxalate with a purity higher than 99.99% by selectively precipitating Ni(II) with the addition of Na₂C₂O₄ as a precipitant.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.29-36
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• 2013

Although Korean domestic production of flat panel displays totalled more than 48 trillion KRW in 2007, most of the flat panel display wastes have been land-filled or incinerated, which greatly overshadows Korean national prestige as a world leading producer and developer of flat panel display devices. Countries such as Japan or EU possess quite limited land-fill capability and have sought ways to dispose of WEEEs from environment-friendly perspective rather than recovery of valuable materials from the wastes. Considering relatively short cycle of about 5 years for flat panel display devices, it is estimated that more than 5 million units will be accumulated as wastes by 2015. Urban mining is a most suitable countermeasures against China's monopoly of rare and rare earth metals, which are contained in flat panel display wastes. Therefore, materials recycling of waste LCD units has to be developed and commercialized soon enough for economic and environment-friendly recovery of valuable resources hidden in LCD wastes.