Trends in Biotechnology
Science & SocietySustainable Bioprospecting of Electronic Waste
Section snippets
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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Cited by (14)
A review on technologies for recovery of metals from waste lithium-ion batteries
2023, Journal of Power SourcesPreparation of highly selective polyether sulfone /polym-phenylenediamine membrane for recovery of Au(III) from aqueous solutions
2023, Chemical Engineering Research and DesignCitation Excerpt :At present, the recycling rate of electronic products in the world is only 20%, and as much as 80% of electronic waste is landfilled or incinerated in countries such as China, India, Pakistan, Vietnam, and the Philippines. These e-wastes release toxins when burned, resulting in greenhouse gas emissions that further contribute to environmental pollution (Awasthi and Li, 2019; Awasthi et al., 2016). At present, the treatment method of electronic waste is mainly chemical treatment.
Electronic waste and their leachates impact on human health and environment: Global ecological threat and management
2021, Environmental Technology and InnovationCitation Excerpt :A number of countries have already resorted to effective e-waste management strategies and cutting-edge recycling technologies like integrated hydrometallurgical and pyrometallurgical smelters to manage these wastes sustainably and extract all the possible valuable components (Yong et al., 2019). Bioprospecting of e-waste is one of the promising approaches that provides environmental, public health and economic benefits (Awasthi and Li, 2019). The disposal and management of e-waste is itself a big task, particularly when growing population and industrialization are making people more addicted to the use of electronic gadgets and equipment.
Comparative analysis of hydrometallurgical methods for the recovery of Cu from circuit boards: Optimization using response surface and selection of the best technique by two-step fuzzy AHP-TOPSIS method
2020, Journal of Cleaner ProductionCitation Excerpt :First, WEEE can introduce toxic elements into the urban waste stream, which can result in harmful environmental and human health effects. The second reason is the loss of financial resources, which, if recycled, can provide convenient economic opportunities (Awasthi and Li, 2019b; Dias et al., 2018; Needhidasan et al., 2014). Therefore, these wastes should absolutely be recycled, with this recycling process being known as urban mining (Simoni et al., 2015).
Gold recovery using porphyrin-based polymer from electronic wastes: Gold desorption and adsorbent regeneration
2020, Science of the Total EnvironmentCitation Excerpt :It is therefore plausible that mining precious metals from e-waste offers a future route for obtaining such valuable metals (Işıldar et al., 2019). Gold embedded in e-waste has attracted considerable attention in urban mining due to its high market price (D’Adamo et al., 2019) and its positive impact on the environment (Awasthi and Li, 2019). To make a pure form of metals, purification and separation, known as refining, are essential.