Abstract
In the twenty-first century, the increasing demand for electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) has caused its quick update and the shortening of its service life span. As a consequence, a large number of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) needs to be processed and recycled. As an environmentally friendly method, biometallurgy has received extensive attention in the disposal of WEEE in recent years. Aspergillus niger is an acid-producing fungus with a potential applicability to improve metals’ recycling efficiency. This review article describes the latest statistical status of WEEE and presents the latest progress of various metallurgical methods involved in WEEE recycling for metal recovery. Moreover, based on the summary and comparison towards studies have been reported for bioleaching metals from WEEE by A. niger, the bioleaching mechanisms and the bioleaching methods are explained, as well as the effects of process parameters on the performance of the bioleaching process are also discussed. Some insights and perspectives are provided for A. niger to be applied to industrial processing scale.
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This work was supported by Key Laboratory for Solid Waste Management and Environment Safety, Ministry of Education of China, Tsinghua University (SWMES 2017-02).
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This work was supported by Key Laboratory for Solid Waste Management and Environment Safety, Ministry of Education of China, Tsinghua University (SWMES 2017-02).
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TX, JLiu, JW, and SG collected and arranged the data in the paper. JLi and TX were the major contributors in writing the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Li, J., Xu, T., Liu, J. et al. Bioleaching metals from waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) by Aspergillus niger: a review. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28, 44622–44637 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-15074-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-15074-z