Evaluation of recovery potential for precious and rare earth metals from e-waste

Considering the enormous production of electrical and electronic wastes in recent years, it is obvious that the research of their material composition is essential in order to manage them properly and prevent health and environmental problems resulting from their inappropriate disposal. On the other hand, it is known that the e-wastes contain valuable metals in them and these valuable metals are lost during the current disposal and recycling processes. Therefore, the detection and quantification of these metals in e-waste samples is important for increasing recycling rate of them. The main objective of this study was to evaluate the recovery potentials of certain precious and rare earth metals from e-waste. The metal characterization of twenty five different e-waste samples collected from various sources was completed as a first step. Selected base, precious and rare earth metals in these e-waste samples were detected and quantified by using ICP-OES. Since the number of printed circuit boards of mobile phone samples and motherboards of computer samples is relatively higher than the number of other samples, their recovery potentials in terms of base, precious and rare earth metals were finally determined. Results of this study show that, while the recovery of precious metals should be the main goal of the recycling process of printed circuit boards from mobile phones, the recovery of both precious metals and rare earth elements should also be the focus of the recycling process of motherboards of computers.