As we all know, we produce a lot of products containing electronic parts, such as printed circuit boards and batteries. In time, these electronic parts get replaced for various reasons (broken, outdated, ...). This generates a lot of electronic waste, also known as e-waste.
Even though it is called “e-waste”, for many it is still considered high-value material because the e-waste contains small amounts of metals, such as nickel, copper, and gold. A commonly used solution for getting these metals out is by shipping the e-waste to poor(er) regions, such as Africa, where the valuable metals are often separated from the plastic and other non-metal parts by hand.
Unfortunately, the stream of e-waste has become so large, that only about 22% of all e-waste is collected and recycled. The rest is often burned or simply dumped in large open-air landfills resulting in environmental damage and an enormous waste of resources.
Wouldn’t it be great if these issues can be resolved or at least be strongly reduced? Well, there are already a lot of solutions and many can be found in patent literature, for example:
· US10584399B2 claims a process to recover precious materials like silicon and iron from e-waste by blending it with chemicals and smelting the blend in order to separate the formed metal oxides from the other materials.
· WO2024211957A1 discloses a process that leaches out metals like copper, lithium and manganese from e-waste.
· CN101575715B is directed to a process that includes the crushing and breaking of e-waste into small particles and subsequently chemically treating the particles to get the metals out.
Making more use of existing technologies, and making it easier to overcome known hurdles like upscaling or implementation (costs) of recycling processes, it should be possible to reduce the negative impact of e-waste.
An example that shows that it is possible can be found in Poland. Poland, an important automobile part producer, is pushing its lithium ion battery production (especially for the automobile industry). Poland not only produces lithium ion batteries, it also focusses on the recycling of lithium ion batteries and on the residual products that are formed in the production of such batteries. This could give Poland a strong head start in Europe. Let’s hope that more countries follow the example of Poland.
The following articles were used for inspiration:
https://lnkd.in/eqZp7yrz
https://lnkd.in/e2vPSHzw