Urban mining of E-waste: Treasure hunting for precious nanometals

Currently E-waste is considered as one of the top most waste concerns in sustainable production and consumption phenomenon. Urban mining of E-waste may support especially cities, to reduce the pressure on natural resources by resource recovery of metals, metal oxides, and alloys which will reduce air and water pollution from the leachates of the landfills. Among recovered materials, nanometals play a major role due to their unique properties and worthiness. E-waste contains precious and base metals and the recovery may support conservation of natural resources. Although many techniques have been tested in laboratory set-up, effective engineering process development is needed to capture metals, metal oxides, and alloys from E-waste. Reuse of nanometals extracted from E-waste may encourage their use in electronic and electrical equipments. This chapter focuses on techniques that deal with resource recovery with an emphasis on nanoscale metals, the challenges, and future research needs.