Sustainable recycling of cemented tungsten carbide (WC) is essential to solve supply issues and natural resource exhaustion caused by increasing demand. The recycling process should be efficient, ecofriendly, and economically viable, and the resulting product must have quality that is comparable or better than that of cemented WC prepared from virgin raw materials. Herein, we describe an efficient process for recycling cemented WC soft scrap using mechanochemical ball milling in the presence of sulfuric acid. The process is based on the synergetic effect of mechanical milling of scrap and chemical leaching of cobalt (Co). This method has the advantage that WC can be recovered without oxidation or phase change. The leached aqueous Co salts are precipitated as cobalt hydroxide (Co(OH)₂) via pH titration, followed by reduction to obtain high-purity Co powder. The WC and Co purities were 98.04% and 98.07%, respectively. Consolidation of the recovered WC particles and Co powders provided recycled cemented WC having excellent mechanical properties.

硬质合金 (WC) 的可持续回收对于解决因需求增加而导致的供应问题和自然资源枯竭至关重要。回收过程应该是高效、环保和经济可行的，所得产品的质量必须与由原始原材料制成的胶结 WC 相当或更好。在此，我们描述了一种在硫酸存在下使用机械化学球磨回收胶结 WC 软废料的有效工艺。该工艺基于废料的机械研磨和钴 (Co) 的化学浸出的协同效应。这种方法的优点是无需氧化或相变即可回收 WC。浸出的含水 Co 盐沉淀为氢氧化钴 (Co(OH) ₂) 通过 pH 滴定，然后还原得到高纯度 Co 粉末。WC 和 Co 的纯度分别为 98.04% 和 98.07%。回收的 WC 颗粒和 Co 粉末的固结提供了具有优异机械性能的回收胶结 WC。