Evaluation of E-Waste Processing through Secondary Copper Smelting

Wastes of electronics and electrical equipment (WEEE) or simply e-wastes contain many valuable elements that include base metals (Cu, Fe, Pb, Al), precious metals (Au, Ag, Pt, Pd), other metals (Sn, Se, Te, Ta, Co, In, Ru, etc); as well as hazardous elements. Sustainable extraction of the valuable elements from e-waste is challenging due to the complexities of the materials and associated processing routes. There have been a number of processing and extraction techniques developed at laboratory level and few are implemented in industrial practices [1]. The processes implemented at industrial scale are mainly based on an improved combination of traditional extractive metallurgy processes (for example a combined pyrometallurgy, hydrometallurgy and electrometallurgy processes). Although practiced at industry scale, these processes and processing routes are far from optimised. Development of new technologies and/or improvement of the existing practices are still needed. Some of the barriers for improvement include: lack of fundamental knowledge (behaviour of all of these elements, which are governed by their solution thermodynamics); limited sound technoeconomic analyses; as well as limited understanding on the environmental impact of the different processing routes.