Metallurgical processes unveil the unexplored "sleeping mines" e- waste: a review

The aim of this review paper is to critically analyze the existing studies on waste electric and electronic equipment (WEEE), which is one of the most increasing solid waste streams. This complex solid waste stream has pushed many scientific communities to develop novel technologies with minimum ecological disturbance. Noteworthy amount of valuable metals makes e-waste to a core of "urban mining"; therefore, it warrants special attention. Present study is focused on all the basic conceptual knowledge of WEEE ranging from compositional analysis, global statistics of e-waste generation, and metallurgical processes applied for metals extraction from e-waste. This review critically analyses the existing studies to emphasize on the heterogeneity nature of e-waste, which has not been focused much in any of the existing review articles. Comprehensive analysis of conventional approaches such as pyrometallurgy and hydrometallurgy reveals that high costs and secondary pollution possibilities limit the industrial feasibilities of these processes. Therefore biohydrometallurgy, a green technology, has been attracting researchers to focus on this novel technique to implement it for metal extraction from WEEE.