Recovery of valuable metals from E-waste

Abstract

E-waste can be considered as electrical or electronic device which has further no use for current holder but still it has somewhat less value to the next holder to whom it has been sold. E-waste contains both hazardous and valuable metals such as gold, palladium, silver, copper, etc. which can be extracted from waste printed circuit boards (PCBs) resulting in saving of natural resources. The danger part of e-waste is that it contains toxic and hazardous materials such as epoxy resins plastics, glass, cadmium, selenium, arsenic, lead, mercury, etc. released to environment can create severe problems(damage) to human health and environment when not recycled properly. The recycling also causes and creates environmental damages. The encountered recycling management to recover valuable and precious metals from e-waste by leaching process also exploits various hazardous substances and materials namely nitric acid and cyanide which create serious damage to environment and human health. The objective of the present study is to provide scientific process to recover gold, palladium, silver and copper from printed circuit boards recovered from e-waste. This work is directed towards the area of waste management. Hydrometallurgical process is applied to extract these metals from e-waste. Recovery of valuable metals from e-waste(PCB)can be carried out in different ways.