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Electronic waste as a source of rare earth element pollution: Leaching, transport in porous media, and the effects of nanoparticles by Aaron Brewer; Ishai Dror; Brian Berkowitz is a Environmental Science article available to read on EtoBox.

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Rare earth elements (REEs) are an emerging pollutant whose increasing use in various technological applications causes increasing risk of environmental contamination. Electronic waste (E-waste) could be one major source of REE pollution, as E-waste typically contains elevated REE concentrations and is often handled in unsafe and environmentally hazardous ways. Here, a series of leaching assays revealed that <1% of REEs available in a representative E-waste were released except at acidic conditions (pH 2) rarely observed in nature. If REEs are leached from E-waste, the extent of their spread in the environment will depend, in large part, on their mobility through porous media. Measurements of REE transport through saturated sand demonstrated extremely limited mobility except at acidic conditions (pH 2), though significant REE retention by the substrate still occurs at this low pH. Similar experiments in a natural soil found REE mobility to be even lower in that substrate, with complete REE retention even after the passage of up to 215 pore volumes of a 500 ppb REE solution. Aqueous REEs are therefore not expected to be highly mobile in the environment. The presence of natural or ant

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Author

Aaron Brewer; Ishai Dror; Brian Berkowitz

Publisher

Elsevier BV

Published

2022

Language

EN

Field

Environmental Science (Physical Sciences)