EXTRACTION OF MATERIALS FROM E-WASTE

Electronic waste (E-waste) is the term used to describe old, end-of-life or discarded applications. It includes computers, consumer electronics, batteries etc. which have been disposed of by their original users. It is one of the fastest – growing pollution problems worldwide given the presence of a variety of toxic substances (heavy and toxic metals like Cd, Pb, Ni, Li,…….) which can contaminate the environment and threaten human health, if disposal protocols are not meticulously followed. The current study presents an overview of toxic substances present in e-waste, which can be extracted using standard methods. These extractions can be done in laboratories and also in common household equipped with certain safety measures. E-waste solutions were analyzed for presence of various metals qualitatively and those present were estimated quantitatively.  From the eight Ni-Cd batteries containing a total of 11.342 g of source material from which 5.986 g of Graphite and 2.109 g of Cadmium were obtained. Eight AA alkaline batteries contain 16.325 g of source material which yielded 6.859 g of graphite, 5.439 g of Manganese and 2.380g of Nickel. From six Lithium Laptop batteries yielded a source of 15.714 g out of which 2.989 g of Lithium were extracted. These salts or compounds extracted can be recycled and purified. It also can be used as a substituent or potential replacement in the laboratories.