Sustainable Urban Mining of Precious Metals

The rapid revolution in modern industry has led to a significant increase in waste at the end of the product lifecycle. It is essential to close the loop, secure resources, and join up the circular economy. This book provides a detailed review of extraction techniques for urban mining of precious metals including gold, silver, and the platinum group. The merits and demerits of various extraction methods are highlighted, with possible suggestions for improvements. The feasibility of hybrid extraction techniques, as well as the sustainability and environmental impact of every process, is explored.

• Offers a comprehensive review of different techniques used in recycling technology for urban mining of precious metals
• Describes the concept of urban mining and its correlation with circular economy
• Discusses feasibility of precious metal extraction and urban mines scope and their potential
• Explains the subject in-context of sustainability while describing chemistry fundamentals and industrial practices
• Provides technical flow sheets for urban mining of precious metals with diversity of lixiviant

This book is aimed at graduate students and researchers in extractive metallurgy, hydrometallurgy, chemical engineering, chemistry, and environmental engineering.

Sadia Ilyas is currently working as Brainpool Scientist (NRF)/Research professor at the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy Engineering at Jeonbuk National University in Jeonju, Republic of Korea. After receiving her M.Phil. and Ph.D. in Inorganic Chemistry from Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan and University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan, respectively; she served in China as Senior Researcher at the School of Chemical Engineering and Pharmacy (Wuhan) and in Korea as Postdoctoral fellow at Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources, and in Pakistan as Assistant Professor at GC University, Faisalabad. Besides the academic lecture in Inorganic Chemistry her research deals with hydrometallurgical exploitation of energy-critical elements and urban mining of value added metals. She has published more than 50 research articles in peer-reviewed international journals and also author in 25books/contributed book chapters/text books/ laboratory manuals.

Hyunjung "Nick" Kim is the Professor at the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy Engineering at Jeonbuk National University in Jeonju, Korea. Dr. Kim received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from Hanyang University in Seoul, Korea and Ph.D. from the University of California, Riverside in Chemical and Environmental Engineering. He specializes in colloidal chemistry, froth flotation, bio-hydrometallurgy and microplastics with over ten years of academic research experience. Prof. Kim is currently serving as the Editorial Member/Associate Editor in several reputed journals. Prof. Kim has authored more than 100 refereed journal publications, several book chapters. He has been awarded the Young Scientist award from the Industrial Minerals & Aggregates Division of the Society for Mining, Metallurgy, and Exploration (SME) in 2016. Prof. Kim also served as lead director of BK-3, one of the prestigious project of Korea. Prof. Kim also served as lead director of Brain Korea 21+, one of the prestigious projects of Korea.

Dr. Rajiv Ranjan Srivastava is a Sr. Lecturer at the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Sr. Researcher at the Institute of Research and Development, Duy Tan University (DTU), Da Nang Vietnam. Dr. Srivastava holds Ph.D. degree from the Korea University of Science and Technology (UST) in the major of Resources Recycling (under the discipline of Engineering). Before joining to DTU, he has worked at TAE-HYUNG Recycling (R&D centre, Korea), Rubamin Limited (Rubamin Technology Centre, India), CSIR-National Metallurgical Laboratory (India) in various positions. His inter-disciplinary research interests include waste management, urban mining, sustainable management of environmental resources, and hydrometallurgical exploitation of energy-critical elements for clean and alternative energy production. He is a member of several scientific societies and has published several papers in top-ranking SCI journals as well as a number of book chapters and edited several books.