Development of an eco-friendly material recycling process for spent lead glass using a mechanochemical process and Na2EDTA reagent.

To develop a novel nonheating method with lower energy consumption and higher efficiency for recovering both lead and SiO2 glass matrix from spent lead-glass powder, we attempted to treat the spent lead glass by the mechanochemical method using the metal chelate reagent, sodium ethylenediaminetetraacetate (Na2EDTA). As a result of the wet ball-milling treatment of spent lead-glass powder sealed in a polypropylene bottle with zirconia balls, Na2EDTA, and water at room temperature, we found that more than 99 mass % of lead contained in the spentlead-glass powder was extracted as a lead-EDTA species from the solid silica glass network matrix. This separation phenomenon was accelerated by the enlargement of the solid-liquid interface area due to ball-milling atomization and by the high stability constant of lead-EDTA. High extraction yield suggests that Pb-O-Pb bonds in lead glass are weakened or are broken down by the wet ball-milling treatment, i.e., the strong mechanical energy such as the potential and/ or friction energy provided by ball-milling may be high enough to elute lead ions from silica matrix. Moreover, we succeeded in recovering both lead ions as lead sulfate, which is the main compound of anglesite, and the EDTA as sodium-EDTA, which is reusable as the metal chelate reagent in wet chemical process using the ferric sulfate.