Silver production from spent zinc–silver oxide batteries via leaching–cementation technique

ABSTRACT

Silver recovery from a spent submarine battery was investigated. The effect of different parameters including nitric acid concentration, temperature, solid to liquid ratio (w/v%) and time was studied and results revealed that recovery increased by increasing acid concentration, temperature (up to 55°C) and solid to liquid ratio (up to 40 g/L). Recovery of silver could reach 99.99% under optimum conditions and the activation energy was found to be 22.84 KJ/mol. Moreover, the effect of Cu/Ag ratio (w %), time, pH and temperature on the precipitation of silver from PLS was studied by surface response methodology (RSM).

KEYWORDS:

• Zinc–silver oxide battery
• silver leaching
• cementation
• copper powder

Acknowledgements

The authors greatly thankful for University of Birjand, mining engineering department, for the financial support, and conducting experiments, as well as analysis.

Conflicts of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.