Electronic wastes: A near inexhaustible and an unimaginably wealthy resource for water splitting electrocatalysts

Abstract

E-wastes comprise complex combinations of potentially toxic elements that cause detrimental effects of the environmental contamination; besides their posing threat, most of the products also contain valuable and recoverable materials (Li, Au, Ag, W, Se, Te, etc.), which make them distinct from other forms of industrial wastes. Most of these value-added elements which are primarily employed in electronic goods are disposed of by incineration and land-filling. This is a serious issue besides just environmental pollution, as IUPAC recognized that such ignorance of or poor attention to e-waste recycling has put several elements in the periodic table to the list of endangered elements. Recycling these wastes utilized for electrocatalytic water splitting to produce H2. These recovered e-wastes materials are used as electrocatalysts for the water-splitting, additives to enhance reaction kinetics, and substrate electrodes as well. Recycling and recovery of value-added materials in the view of applying them to electrocatalytic water splitting with endangered elements' perspective have not been covered by any recent review so far. Hence, this review is dedicated to discussing the opportunities available with recycling e-wastes, types of value-added materials that can be recovered for water splitting, strategies exploited, and prospects are discussed in details.