Determination of Some Heavy and Precious Metals from Printed Circuit Board (PCB) from a Television Set by Atomic Absorption Spectrophometer

Aim: This research work aimed to determine the concentrations of some heavy and precious metals from printed circuit board (PCB) of a television set using Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer (AAS) in order to identify elements with higher concentration as target source of raw materials for metal recovery.

Study Design: Grab sampling technique was applied in this study. The study area was a refuse dumb site at computer village Ogbunabali, Port Harcourt.

Place and Duration of Study: This study was carried out at computer village Ogbunabali, Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria between 2020 and 2021.

Methodology: The metal fractions attached to the PCB were subjected to mechanical separation, placed inside a 75ml Kjeldahl flask and thereafter digested with a 20ml nitric acid (HNO3). The prepared sample was filtered, then made up to 100ml using distilled water and analysed using AAS (Shimadzu model AA6300).

Results: The results showed the presence of some heavy metals such as: (Fe,0.0644mg/l, Pb, 0.0732mg/l, Cu,0.0627mg/l, Ni, 0.1076mg/l and Cd, 0.0001mg/l) in higher concentrations (apart from Cd) than the precious metals (Au, 0.0297mg/l, Pd, 0.0042mg/l, Ag, 0.0316mg/l and Li, 0.0019mg/l). This confirmed that the PCB which is an electronic waste was largely made up of heavy and precious metals.

Conclusion: Metals can be determined effectively from electronic waste using HNO3 and AAS. It is therefore, recommended that proper recycling methods should be put in place in order to reduce the pollution caused by these electronic wastes.