Waste from Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) is the fastest growing waste stream in the EU with between 3 and 5 % per year, which means that it doubles every 12-15 years.
Therefore a significant improvement of electronic waste recycling is needed.
The idea of HydroWEEE is to develop a mobile plant using hydrometallurgical processes to extract metals like Copper (Cu), Manganese (Mn), Zinc (Zn), Yttrium (Y), Indium (In) etc. in a high purity (above 95%). Several SMEs will be able to benefit from the same plant at different times and pure enough materials will be produced that can be directly used by end-users for electroplating.