LIBS as an alternative method to control an industrial hydrometallurgical process for the recovery of Cu in waste from electro-electronic equipment (WEEE)

[Display omitted] •LIBS as a tool for industrial process control.•Direct solid sample inspection of WEEE using LIBS.•Chemometrics application combining LIBS data and WEEE.•Evaluation and optimization of industrial processes using chemometric tools. Many studies in the literature show that waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) is increasing significantly worldwide, so new management methods and technologies for recycling this waste are needed. Similar to the need for new methods and technologies for recycling WEEE, there is a concern about the development of new methods of analysis with the concepts of green chemistry to control chemical processes. Motivated by these important problems, this study had as its main goal the development of an alternative analytical method for the control of a hydrometallurgical Cu recovery process in discarded printed circuit boards using laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS). The results presented in this work show that LIBS can be used as an alternative technique to control the Cu leaching process. Presenting the advantage of requiring a relatively less complex sample preparation compared to other analytical techniques for determining metals and without the consumption of critical reagents, such as acids and bases.