Metallurgical recovery of metals from electronic waste: a review.

How are WEEE doing? A global review of the management of electrical and electronic wastes

Trace metal contamination in estuarine and coastal environments in China

Heavy metal contamination in soils and vegetables near an e-waste processing site, south China

Waste from Electric and Electronic Equipments (WEEEs) is currently considered to be one of the fastest growing waste streams in the world, with an estimated growth rate going from 3% up to 5% per year. The recycling of Electric or electronic waste (E-waste) products could allow the diminishing use of virgin resources in manufacturing and, consequently, it could contribute in reducing the environmental pollution. Given that EU is trying, since the last two decades, to develop a circular economy based on the exploitation of resources recovered by wastes, a comprehensive framework supporting the decision-making process of multi-WEEE recycling centres will be analysed in this paper. An economic assessment will define the potential revenues coming from the recovery of 14 e-products (e.g. LCD notebooks, LED notebooks, CRT TVs, LCD TVs, LED TVs, CRT monitors, LCD monitors, LED monitors, cell phones, smart phones, PV panels, HDDs, SSDs and tablets) on the base of current and future disposed volumes in Europe. Moreover, a sensitivity analysis will be used to test the impact of some critical variables (e.g. price of recovered materials, input materials composition, degree of purity obtained by the recycling process, volumes generated, and percentage of collected waste) on specific economic indexes. A discussion of the economic assessment results shows the main challenges in the recycling sector and streamlines some concrete solutions.

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Recycling of WEEEs: An economic assessment of present and future e-waste streams

A review of the environmental fate and effects of hazardous substances released from electrical and electronic equipments during recycling: Examples from China and India

Summary
The manufacturing of electronic and electrical equipment (EEE) is a major demand sector for precious and special metals with a strong growth potential. Both precious and special metals are contained in complex components with only small concentrations per unit. After the use-phase, waste electronic and electrical equipment (WEEE) is an important source of these “trace elements.” Their recycling requires appropriate processes in order to cope with the hazardous substances contained in WEEE and to recover efficiently the valuable materials. Although state-of-the-art preprocessing facilities are optimized for recovering mass-relevant materials such as iron and copper, trace elements are often lost. The objective of this article is to show how a substance flow analysis (SFA) on a process level can be used for a holistic approach, covering technical improvement at process scale, optimization of product life cycles, and contributing to knowledge on economy-wide material cycles. An SFA in a full-scale preprocessing facility shows that only 11.5 wt.% of the silver and 25.6 wt.% of the gold and of the palladium reach output fractions from which they may potentially be recovered. For copper this percentage is 60. Considering the environmental rucksack of precious metals, an improvement of the recycling chain would significantly contribute to the optimization of the product life cycle impact of EEE and to ensuring the long-term supply of precious metals.

http://environmentportal.in/files/Assessment%20of%20Precious%20Metal%20Flows.pdf

Assessment of Precious Metal Flows During Preprocessing of Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment

With the new legislation for Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) coming up in Europe and similar developments in other parts of the world, a substantial increase of end-of-life electronic equipment to be treated will take place on a global scale. In this context, often much attention is placed on logistical issues, dismantling and shredding/pre-processing of electronic-scrap, while the ﬁnal, physical metals recovery step in a smelter is often just taken for granted. However, a state-of-the-art smelter and reﬁnery process has a major impact on recycling efﬁciency, in terms of elements and value that are recovered as well as in terms of overall environmental performance. Besides copper and precious metals, modern integrated smelters recover a large variety of other elements, and can make use of organics such as plastics to substitute coke as a reducing agent and fuel as an energy source. Umicore has recently completed major investments at its Hoboken Works, com-pletely shifting the plants focus from mining concentrates to recyclable materials and industrial by-products. Based on complex Cu/Pb/Ni metallurgy, the plant has been de-veloped to the globally most advanced full-scale processor of various precious metals containing fractions from elec-tronic scrap, generating optimum metal yields for precious and special metals at increased productivity and minimised environmental impact. Especially the interface between pre-processing (shredding/sorting) and integrated smelting offers additional optimisation potential, which can lead to a substantial increase in overall (precious) metals yields. Keywords:Electronic scrap – Integrated metals smelting – Circuit board & mobile phone recycling – Precious metals – Inter-face optimisationRecycling von Elektronikschrott in Umicores integriertem Metallhutten-ProzessDie Einfuhrung der europaischen Elektroaltgerateverord-nung (WEEE-directive) und ahnlicher Gesetzesinitiativen in anderen Regionen wird weltweit zu einem signiﬁkantem Anstieg an zu verwertendem Elektronikschrott fuhren. In diesem Kontext wird hauﬁg groses Augenmerk auf logis-tische Aspekte sowie auf Zerlegung und Vorbehandlung (Shreddern & Aufbereitung) von E-Schrott gerichtet, wah-rend der eigentlichen, physischen Metallruckgewinnung in Hutten oft weit weniger Beachtung geschenkt wird. Tatsachlich aber hat ein moderner, fur das E-Schrott-Re-cycling optimierter Hutten- und Rafﬁnationsprozess einen sikniﬁkanten Einﬂuss auf die Efﬁzienz der gesamten Re-cyclingkette, sowohl in Bezug auf ruckgewinnbare Metalle und Wertinhalt als auch hinsichtlich der Okobilanz der Verwertung. Dem Stand der Technik entsprechende inte-grierte Hutten konnen neben Kupfer und Edelmetallen eine breite Palette anderer Metalle zuruckgewinnen. Orga-nische Stoffe (z.B. Kunststoffe) ﬁnden dabei Verwendung als Substitut fur Koks (Reduktionsmittel) und Schwerol (Energie). Umicore hat im Werk Hoboken in den letzten Jahren erhebliche Investitionen getatigt, durch welche die ehemalige Primarhutte vollstandig in eine Sekundarhutte fur Recyclingmaterial und Huttenbeiprodukte umgewan-delt wurde. Basierend auf einer komplexen Cu/Pb/Ni-Me-tallurgie wurde die Anlage zum weltweit modernsten End-verarbeiter von edelmetallhaltigen Fraktionen entwickelt, mit dem optimierte Metallausbeuten bei erhohter Pro-duktivitat und minimierter Umweltbeanspruchung erzielt werden. Eine weitere Optimierung der Recyclingkette kann vor allem an der Schnittstelle zwischen mechanischer Aufbereitung und integrierter Verhuttung erreicht werden, wodurch die Gesamtausbeute an (Edel-)Metallen deutlich verbessert wurde.Schlusselworter:Elektronikschrott – Integrierte Metallhutte – Recycling von Leiterplatten und Mobiltelefonen – Edelmetalle – SchnittstellenoptimierungRecyclage de dechets electroniques a la fonderie/rafﬁnerie integree de metaux d’UmicoreReciclage de residuos electronicos en la integrada funda/reﬁneria de metales de UmicorePaper presented on the occasion of the European Metallurgical Conference EMC 2005, September 18 to 21, 2005, in Dresden.

Recycling of Electronic Scrap at Umicore's Integrated Metals Smelter and Refinery

Catalysts for the purification of vehicle exhaust gas contain the precious metals platinum (Pt), palladium (Pd) and rhodium (Rh). Between 1980 and 2006 a total of 3,500 tonnes of platinum group metals (PGM) were employed in automotive catalysts worldwide, of which around 1,650 tonnes were accounted for by palladium, 1,500 tonnes by platinum and 330 tonnes by rhodium. Primary production of these metals amounted in the same period to over 8,300 tonnes, which means that the automotive catalyst - as described in detail in [1] - represents, with around 40 %, the most important demand segment for PGMs.

Closing the loop - : Recycling of automotive catalysts

The present invention relates to a process for the concentration of noble metals from fluorine-containing components of fuel cells, for example from PEM fuel cell stacks, DMFC fuel cells, catalyst-coated membranes (CCMs), membrane electrode assemblies (MEAs), catalyst pastes, etc. The process is based on an optionally multi-step heat treatment process comprising a combustion and/or a melting process. It allows an inexpensive, simple concentration of noble materials. The hydrogen fluoride formed during the heat treatment of fluorine-containing components is bound by an inorganic additive so that no harmful hydrogen fluoride emissions occur. The process can be used for the recovery of noble metals that are present as components in fuel cells, electrolysis cells, batteries, and the like.

Christian Hagelüken

Papers

A review of the environmental fate and effects of hazardous substances released from electrical and electronic equipments during recycling: Examples from China and India

Assessment of Precious Metal Flows During Preprocessing of Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment

Recycling of Electronic Scrap at Umicore's Integrated Metals Smelter and Refinery

Closing the loop - : Recycling of automotive catalysts

Process for the concentration of noble metals from fluorine-containing fuel cell components