Recovery of base and precious metals from PCBs (Printed Circuit Boards) in waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE)

Abstract

Natural minerals are a powerful tool in politics when some have a major role in production. Its depletion is now a hot topic worldwide. Thus, the safety of the environment, natural surface water, groundwater and the protection of soils from chronic contamination by metallic and inorganic elements is a global concern. Indeed, industrialization and development have led to the generation of huge and varied amounts of waste, including electronic waste (e-waste), which is released into the environment. Although e-waste is classified as hazardous, most of it is not recycled and developed countries with strict environmental protection legislation send most of their e-waste to developing countries where regulations are lax. These electronic devices and components after being used are simply dumped into the environment due to lack of treatment and recycling strategy. As a result, they become a threat to the environment, ecosystems and humans. African countries are among the most vulnerable nations. But they are unfortunately ignored and underestimated. To date, there is no e-waste recycling unit (factory) in most African countries and mainly in the Republic of Benin. In response to this challenge, this study explored the different techniques used for the recycling of waste electrical/electronic equipment in order to develop a new environmentally friendly approach in future work, for the extraction and recycling of the usual and valuable metallic elements contained in electronic waste (printed circuit boards) released into the environment. For this purpose, a bibliographic research was carried out from 20 April to 16 October 2021. The results obtained allowed us to identify the advantages and disadvantages of existing recycling methods.