Abhishek Kumar Awasthi, Jinhui Li
Most waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE or E-waste) is recycled in the informal sector, despite the availability of more sophisticated recycling technologies. Mechanical recycling is usually the first step, achieving maximum metal extraction but comes with health risks, high costs, and loss of secondary metal resources. Chemical methods offer a faster, yet metal-specific approach that causes secondary pollution. In contrast, microbial metal recovery presents an eco-friendly and promising technology for WEEE processing. This review evaluates recent trends in various recycling technologies, including physical, chemical, and biological methods aimed at recovering valuable metals from secondary resources. Given that no single method alone is sufficient for achieving eco-friendly, high metal extraction rates from WEEE, a combined process that starts with mechanical treatment followed by leaching with biodegradable reagents or organic acids from microbes is proposed as more eco-friendly and economically viable. This article identifies specific gaps in existing technologies to address the e-waste challenge and advocates for a hybrid strategy as the optimal solution.
@article{61d9b0f7-4101-40b3-97e4-87f28e786136,
title={An overview of the potential of eco friendly hybri 2017 Resources Conservat},
author={Abhishek Kumar Awasthi and Jinhui Li},
year={2026},
language={en}
}TY - JOUR TI - An overview of the potential of eco friendly hybri 2017 Resources Conservat AU - Abhishek Kumar Awasthi AU - Jinhui Li PY - 2026 LA - en ER -
Printed circuit boards (PCBs) from electronic gadgets at the end of their useful life period are currently being dumped in landfills or incinerated, c
Huan Li, Elsayed Oraby, Jacques Eksteen
Waste printed circuit boards (WPCBs) are a complicated and valuable fraction of electric and electronic waste. The recycling of them is critical to av
Katrin Pollmann, Sabine Kutschke
The increasing demand of different essential metals as a consequence of the development of new technologies, especially in the so called 'low carbon t
Mudila Dhanunjaya Rao, Kamalesh K. Singh
Rapid global technological development has resulted in increased production of electronic waste, which presents both challenges and opportunities in r