The invention relates to a method for extracting
copper in waste printed circuit boards by virtue of moderately thermophilic
bacteria. The method comprises the following steps of carrying out
shaker hydraulic sorting on the artificially dismounted and pulverized waste printed circuit boards to obtain
metal and waste residues; putting the waste residues into an improved 9K culture medium, adjusting the pH value to 2 and leaching with a mixed strain of leptospirillum ferriphilum,
acidithiobacillus caldus, sulfobacillus thermosulfidooxidans and thermoacidiferriphile as a leaching strain to obtain a
copper-enriched solution and leaching residues; filtering the
copper-enriched solution with a
hollow fiber membrane system to obtain the strain and a copper-containing filtrate and putting the strain again into the leaching
system for repeatedly using; and extracting the copper-containing filtrate with hydroxy
oxime and a hydroxy
oxime complex Lix984 as extraction agents to obtain a copper-loaded organic phase and a
raffinate, carrying out back extraction on the copper-loaded organic phase with a 10-30%
sulfuric acid solution to obtain a back extract and a blank organic phase and carrying out electrodeposition on the back extract to obtain
cathode copper and an electrodeposited barren liquid. By the method disclosed by the invention, the environment-friendly, economic and full-value
recovery of the waste printed circuit boards is achieved and the method has the advantages of short flow, low investment, high efficiency and low treatment cost and is suitable for the
recovery of all types of the waste printed circuit boards.