Membrane Operations for the Recovery of Valuable Metals from Industrial Wastewater

Established technologies for metal recovery from industrial wastewater streams

“…Low-carbon energy technologies (e.g., solar, wind, bioenergy, carbon capture and storage), catalytic processes, and electronic equipment require large amounts of metals with low natural abundance and unequal terrestrial distribution. These challenges are particularly relevant for metals classified as critical, including cobalt, selenium, tellurium, platinum group metals (PGMs) as well as rare earth elements (REEs) such as scandium and yttrium (see Table 11.1) [2]. About 90% of the supply of these critical metals comes from only nine countries, with China providing almost half of the total supply [3].…”

“…About 90% of the supply of these critical metals comes from only nine countries, with China providing almost half of the total supply [3]. To illustrate the scarcity and uneven resource distribution of some of these metals (e.g., the use of platinum, palladium, and rhodium in catalytic converters in automobiles) to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions has been estimated to comprise about 39, 67, and 69% of the global production capacity, respectively [2]. The majority of the supply comes only comes from two countries only, namely, South Africa and Russia [3].…”