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The presence of rare earth elements and critical metals in waste electric and electronic equipment: challenges for recovery
Publikationstyp
Journal Article
Date Issued
2019-01-07
Sprache
English
Author(s)
TORE-URI
Journal
Volume
20
Issue
4
Start Page
773
End Page
777
Citation
Global Nest Journal 4 (20): 773-777 (2018-01-01)
Publisher DOI
Scopus ID
The fast growth of waste electric and electronic equipment (WEEE) is not only a threat to our environment, but also a great source of rare earth elements (REEs) and critical metals (CMs). Despite the fact that Directive 2012/19/EU encourages the treatment of WEEE by setting targets for collection, re-use and recycling, it does not directly target the recycling of REEs and CMs. The insufficient data about the composition of REEs and CMs in electric and electronic equipment (EEE), the high recycling costs and the different motivations/interests of the stakeholders are some of the main inhibiting factors. Recently, scientific community pays much attention to the recovery and recycling of REEs and CMs due to several associated benefits. Hence this work highlights the economic importance of REEs and CMs in terms of their inevitability in EEE. Then, an overview of the supply risk of REEs and CMs and the challenges related to the recovery are provided.
Subjects
WEEE recycling
supply risks
criticality risks
collection systems
losses of metals
DDC Class
500: Naturwissenschaften
620: Ingenieurwissenschaften