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Electronic waste (e-waste), including waste printed circuit boards (PCBs), has caused global concern owing to its potential environmental pollution and rich resource content. Previous studies have indicated that urban mining for metals recycling can decrease energy consumption and pollutants emission compared to the extraction of metals from natural minerals. During the production of PCBs, a large amount of spent tin stripping solution (TSS) is simultaneously generated, containing the significant amounts of metal ions and residue nitric acid. In this study, the coprocessing of waste PCBs and spent TSS at room temperature was proposed and investigated, with the aim of developing an environmentally sound process to address these problems. This coprocessing approach proved to be effective. 87% of the Sn–Pb solder, 30% of the Cu, 29% of the Fe, and 78% of the Zn was leached from waste PCBs with spent TSS after 2 h, at room temperature. Moreover, approximately 87% of the electronic components were dismantled from waste PCBs. About 99% of the Sn, Pb, Fe, Cu, and Zn were recovered from the leaching solutions by chemical precipitation. The proposed green process has substantial advantages over traditional recovery methods of heating waste PCBs, in terms of both material and energy efficiency.

The rapid generation of electronic waste (e-waste) has become a global problem owing to its potential environmental pollution and human-health risk, especially from informal recycling in developing countries. In 2014, however, only ∼15.5% of the total global e-waste was formally treated by national take-back programs. Waste printed circuit boards (PCBs) are an integral part of e-waste, and they contain many valuable metal resources. Most recycling from waste PCBs has focused on metals like Au, platinum group metals, and Cu, which have high economic value, but tin also makes up a large proportion of the metal in waste PCBs. Over the past decade, ∼44% of the refined tin has been used as solder in the electronics industry each year. Although current global tin reserves can meet the short-term demand, for long-term sustainable development, recycling tin from secondary resources, especially from e-waste, is essential. For addressing the shortage of mineral resources and conserving energy, tin recycling from e-waste needs more attention.

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