Selection of Feasible Leaching Method for Recovery of Heavy Metals from E-waste using Analytic Hierarchy Approach
Abstract Amount of e-waste is increasing tremendously over the years, from almost getting doubled each year. 40 % e-waste consists of many metals and precious metals. The rapid growth in technology development is alarming, as a result more and more e-waste is generating. This leads to myriad problems for handling or management of e-waste. Traditional methods of disposal of e-waste such as landfilling, composting and incineration is major threat to the environment and life. In this study recovery of metals through hydro-metallurgical process such as thiosulfate (M1), iodide (M2) aqua-regia (M3) and thiourea (M4) leaching methods were compared in terms of economic feasibility, environmental impact and reagent reuse in order to find out a feasible leaching method using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). The selection of feasible leaching method has been performed by applying the Saaty, ranking. From the final ranking are, thiosulfate (M1) scored = 0.09, iodide (M2) = 0.16, aqua-regia (M3) = 0.39 and thiourea (M4) = 0.39. From the result M3 and M4 are the feasible method for recovery of heavy metals from E-waste.