Chemical recycling of electronic waste for sustainable livelihoods and material consumption in India

Currently, only 12% of precious metals from electronic waste (e-waste) is recycled, and in India, this figure is as low as 1.5%. India is the world's 5th largest e-waste generator, producing more than 2 million tonnes per year which is compounded by e-waste imports from other countries and leads to large waste dumps and informal scavenging. The jewellery sector accounts for 49% of the global use of precious metals which in India involves a large proportion of predominantly female rural artisans who are subject to exploitative middlemen and poor wages and conditions, despite maintaining their cultural heritage.

This programme develops new chemical methods for the recycling of e-waste in order to generate a new metal supply chain for rural artisanal jewellers in India and to create a formalised e-waste system. We are combining chemical and metallurgical research to design, develop, and exploit new chemical reagents and methods for the recycling of metals such as gold, copper, and the rare earth elements from e-waste. We are targeting these metals due to their prevalence in modern electronics (one tonne of mobile phones contains about 300 g of gold, compared with one tonne of gold ore that yields only 3-8 g), and their potential use in a new metal supply chain that connects chemical recyclers and the rural artisanal jewellery industry in India (gold and copper). These chemical methods can also be conducted on a local scale, are less damaging to the environment and can gain provenance from the Bureau of Indian Standards.
We aim to develop a deep understanding of the chemical principles that dictate the extent of metal separations and dissolution processes and use these principles to define and produce metal separations suitable for the complexity of e-waste. To do this we will exploit an array of complementary techniques to determine chemical structure, define extraction equilibria, and understand mode of action. The collaborations between chemists, metallurgical engineers, and industrialists will facilitate process discovery and implementation, with the development of a new and sustainable metal supply chain from e-waste potentially negating the informal e-waste recycling industry in India.

To complete the circularity of this research work, we will work with rural artisanal jewellers to determine their needs, deliver workshops to develop the techniques required to fabricate high-value jewellery from e-waste metals, and provide provenance for these materials through the creation of a chain of custody mark. Exhibition pieces will be generated and displayed in India and the UK to promote this work and highlight the advantages of this approach.

This programme of research brings together leading academic researchers from the Universities of Edinburgh and Dundee in the UK, and Indian Institute of Technology (BHU) Varanasi and the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad in India.

The principle impact of this work will be on the rural artisanal jewellery sector in India through the generation of a new metal supply chain from regulated e-waste recycling. This would diminish the informal e-waste recycling sector in India and provide environmental and societal benefits to the local community.

The rural artisanal jewellery sector will see commercial gains using metals, primarily copper and gold, derived from electronic waste. This economic impact would provide societal and cultural gains by providing a direct, online access to metals with clear provenance. Commercial impact will arise for the e-waste recycling industries through licensing and patents and increased environmental sustainability would be delivered through the implementation of new solvent extraction processes by these businesses. The development of new metal separation processes would be an important technology which industries could exploit to enhance their abilities and economic advantages in order to shift away from the informal dumping of e-waste in India to a formal recycling supply chain. The research proposed here will also be applicable to the exploitation and recovery across the finite and critical metal resource landscape, from primary (e.g. mines) and other secondary (e.g. tailings) resources and would limit the high global warming potential of mining especially. The collaborative nature of the proposed research will foster global economic performance through the combination and exploitation of the strengths of UK and Indian researchers and the ability of this newly assembled team to provide a holistic and multidisciplinary approach to this challenge. It is evident, as highlighted in the support letters and governmental literature, that there is a significant need for researchers who are trained in this area.

The UK and Indian governments are committed to policies that demand the development of new technologies to facilitate a sustainable lifestyle, including the decarbonisation of energy supply in order to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to 50% of 1990 levels by 2027 and the recycling of waste products, in particular those which have critical and precious metal resource. The proposed research will result in cost-effective routes to metal recovery from a valuable and plentiful waste product. The new programme will further support and strengthen the economic and environmental policies set out by these governments and would act as an exemplar for clear policy direction in the future. It will also promote rural cultural identity through artisanal jewellery manufacture and provide economic stability to the primarily female jewellery makers.

HEIs, school students, and the wider public will be beneficiaries by learning about the world's finite resources, their uses in today's leading technologies, their production and recycling, and the exploitation of the chemical sciences in a sustainable lifestyle. Science demonstrations in these areas, focussing on the chemistry involved in metal recovery and their significance to science and the economy will demonstrate the contribution that the chemical sciences can make to society, the quality of life, and the economy.

The collaborative interactions in this programme will provide teaching, research, and transferable skills development for PDRAs and students who will meet permanent staff and visitors working at the cutting edge of their disciplines. They will present their work in a variety of formats to leading researchers and process engineers at meetings and conferences and will develop transferable skills from our in-house training programmes and those associated with this scientific project that runs across different laboratories and countries.