Electronic Waste

7Pyrometallurgical Processes for Recycling Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment

Jean-Philippe Harvey¹, Mohamed Khalil², and Jamal Chaouki²

¹Polytechnique Montréal, Centre for Research in Computational Thermochemistry (CRCT), Department of Chemical Engineering, C.P. 6079, succ. Centre-Ville, Montreal, Quebec H3C 3A7, Canada

²Polytechnique Montréal, Process Engineering Advanced Research Lab (PEARL), Department of Chemical Engineering, C.P. 6079, succ. Centre-Ville, Montreal, Quebec H3C 3A7, Canada

7.1 Introduction

In the last few decades, the high demand for emerging electronic technologies combined with the short life-in-service of obsolete appliances has led to an exponential rise in waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), which resulted in severe environmental issues: when incinerated, WEEE releases greenhouse gases and toxic emissions; when disposed of in landfills, it contaminates groundwater (Needhidasan et al., 2014). These terrible environmental consequences directly impact developing countries such as Ghana, the world’s largest e-waste landfill (Zvezdin et al. 2020; Álvarez-de-los-Mozos et al., 2020; Vaccari et al. 2019). The United Nations (UN) reported that over 50 million metric tonnes (Mt) of WEEE were produced worldwide in 2019 and that this volume is expected to increase by over 70 million metric tonnes (Mt) over the next few years (Franzolin 2020; Adusei et al. 2020; Aboughaly and Gabbar 2020).

Pyrometallurgy is one of the most viable extractive ...