Current technologies for recovery of metals from industrial wastes: An overview

Fast industrialization has increased the demand for heavy metals, on the other hand, high-grade ore natural reserves are belittling. Therefore, alternative sources of heavy metals need to be investigated. Massive amounts of industrial wastes are being generated annually. The majority is sent to landfills or to incinerators, which eventually poses environmental challenges such as ecological contamination and health hazards to living beings. Such industrial wastes contain hazardous elements of various metals (Au, Ag, Ni, Mo, Co, Cu, Zn, and Cr), whose improper disposal leads to adverse effects to human being and the environment. As a result, methods for industrial waste management such as reuse, remanufacturing, and recycling have received much attention due to the fact that they improve cost effectiveness over time and enable the metal recovery businesses to thrive profitably. The present study provides a state of art review on the current technologies existing for the recovery of precious metals from industrial wastes streams to analyse the sustainability. Among the wastes, spent petroleum catalysts, medical waste, electronic scraps, battery wastes, metal finishing industry waste, and fly ash are some of the largest industrially-generated wastes. Various metal recovery processes involve physical, chemical, and thermal characteristics of waste streams and target metals for separation and extraction. The current challenges of pyrometallurgy, modification on the hydrometallurgy, physical and chemical methods and other advanced technologies are presented in this review. The hydrometallurgical method, which involves dissolving and leaching, is a proven and successful process for recovering metals from various raw materials. Several other recovery methods have been proposed and are currently being implemented; the problem is that most of them are only successful in retrieving certain metals based on specific properties of industrial waste. The recovered metal solutions are further concentrated and purified using adsorption, cementation, chemical precipitation, ion exchange, membrane filtration and ion flotation techniques, which can also be applied to other liquid waste streams. The recovery method only makes sense if the recovery cost is much less than the value of the precious metal. The limitations placed on waste disposal and stringent environmental legislation require environmental-friendly metal recovery technologies. This review paper provides critical information that enables researchers to identify a proper method for metal recovery from different industrial wastes, and also it benefits researchers and stakeholders in determining research directions and making waste management-related decisions.