Title: Comparative life cycle analysis for value recovery of precious metals and rare earth elements from electronic waste

Abstract

There is an ever-increasing concern regarding the electronic waste (e-waste), which is the fastest growing waste stream in the world. Incentivized by various legislations and the intrinsic value of critical metals inside, recycling of e-waste is becoming an attractive business opportunity that also benefits the environment. We report a novel electrochemical recovery (ER) process has been developed as a promising alternative to the existing pyrometallurgical and hydrometallurgical processes based technologies to recover base metals, precious metals, and rare earth elements (REEs) from e-waste. Experimental results indicate that the ER process has lower chemical consumption, enhanced control, and reduced energy demand compared to the pyrometallurgical and the hydrometallurgical processes. To quantify and compare the environmental performances of the three technologies, life cycle analysis has been conducted. Results show that the ER process outperforms the other two processes in almost all impact categories adopted in TRACI and ILCD while there is no clear winner between the hydrometallurgical and the pyrometallurgical processes. The highest impactful input for the ER method is hydrochloric acid, and for the pyrometallurgical method is copper scrap, while for the hydrometallurgical method, it is hydrogen peroxide, an oxidizer that accelerates base metal extraction process, that dominates the overall environmentalmore » footprint. The environmental viability of the ER process warrants the further development of ER process at industrial scale.« less

Authors:

Li, Zhen ^[1]; Diaz, Luis A.  ^[2];

• Search DOE PAGES for author "Diaz, Luis A."
• Search DOE PAGES for ORCID "0000-0003-4895-464X"

Yang, Zhiyao ^[1]; Jin, Hongyue ^[3]; Lister, Tedd E.  ^[2];

• Search DOE PAGES for author "Lister, Tedd E."
• Search DOE PAGES for ORCID "0000-0003-4844-7787"

Vahidi, Ehsan  ^[4];

• Search DOE PAGES for author "Vahidi, Ehsan"
• Search DOE PAGES for ORCID "0000-0002-7674-4028"

Zhao, Fu  ^[1]

• Search DOE PAGES for author "Zhao, Fu"
• Search DOE PAGES for ORCID "0000-0001-5195-868X"

---

+ Show Author Affiliations

1. Purdue Univ., West Lafayette, IN (United States)
2. Idaho National Lab. (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States)
3. Univ. of Arizona, Tucson, AZ (United States)
4. Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)

Publication Date:

Tue May 28 00:00:00 EDT 2019

Research Org.:

Idaho National Laboratory (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States)

Sponsoring Org.:

USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE)

OSTI Identifier:

1631719

Alternate Identifier(s):

OSTI ID: 2325073

Report Number(s):

INL/JOU-18-52061-Rev000
Journal ID: ISSN 0921-3449; TRN: US2201021

Grant/Contract Number:  

AC07-05ID14517

Resource Type:

Accepted Manuscript

Journal Name:

Resources, Conservation and Recycling

Additional Journal Information:

Journal Volume: 149; Journal Issue: C; Journal ID: ISSN 0921-3449

Publisher:

Elsevier

Country of Publication:

United States

Language:

English

Subject:

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE; recycling; rare earth elements; electronic scrap; life cycle analysis; electronic waste; electrochemical recovery; life cycle assessment; precious metal recovery