Science & Society
Sustainable Bioprospecting of Electronic Waste

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Global electronic waste management is emerging as a critical issue, especially in developing countries. Collective societal effort and scientific innovation are required along with interdisciplinary approaches to the development of sustainable technologies for recycling precious metals. Bioprospecting of electronic waste is a promising approach to provide economic, environmental, and public health benefits.

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Global Society and Electronic Waste

By 2017, almost half of the global population was using or had access to an information and communication technology (ICT) device, and many people had more than one ICT devicei [1]. According to Balde and colleaguesi, 44.7 Mt or 6.1 kg per inhabitant (kg/inh) of electronic waste [waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), or electronic waste (e-waste)] is generated annually, and these amounts are estimated to reach about 52.2 Mt/year, or 6.8 kg/inh, by 2021. These devices will make it

Benefits of Recycling Electronic Waste

The main benefits of electronic waste recycling fall into three categories: economic, environmental, and public health.

Bioprospecting Sustainably Assisted Recycling of Valuable Metals

Bioprospecting is a systematic approach involving biological/microbial systems such as microorganisms to develop sustainable and ecofriendly technology. We present a bioprospecting process for the recycling/recovery of metal from electronic waste to minimize the environmental impact of electronic waste management (Figure 1). A number of researchers have studied chemical methods for metal leaching/recovery 9, 10, but these chemical methods cause secondary pollution and the residual materials

Concluding Remarks and Future Perspective

Bioprospecting is a more promising approach than chemical methods for more environmentally sustainable metal recycling/recovery. However, challenges must be addressed prior to large-scale implementation of bioprospecting, such as optimizing the process design and overall performance for the recovery of metals in a biotechnological system. Further detailed studies in this area should improve the biotechnological approach to recovering valuable and precious metals. Finally, these metals could be

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (2017YFF0211604) and a major project of The National Social Science Fund of China (16ZDA071). The authors thank to anonymous reviewers, and Dr Matthew Pavlovich, editor of Trends in Biotechnology, for useful feedback on this contribution.

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