Need of Gallium Recovery from Waste Samples: A Review

Gallium is an vital rare metal mainly because of its growing demand in different domain of life. It has wide applications. Gallium is considered as the backbone of the electronics industry. The supply and demand of gallium-bearing products has gradually increased during the past decade. Therefore, from the environmental stand point the need for sensitive and reliable methods for determining trace concentrations of gallium has become apparent in various fields. Gallium has become increasingly popular as a substrate material for electronic devices. Aside from ore, gallium can be obtained from such industrial sources as the Bayer process caustic liquor that is a byproduct of bauxite processing, flue dust removed from the fume-collection system in plants that produce aluminum by the electrolytic process, zinc refinery residues, gallium scrap materials, and coal fly ash. The purification process for gallium can start with solvent-extraction processes where the concentrations of impurities, especially metals, are reduced to the ppm range. The main aim of this paper is to simply put up the salient facts regarding gallium and identify applicable sources of information thereby one may create a suitable environment for the development of methods for the production of gallium via leaching through various waste samples.