Systematic Assessment of Precious Metal Recovery to Improve Environmental and Resource Protection

Environmental pollution and resource shortage are two major challenges facing the world today, and resourcization of precious metals is one of the effective strategies to confront these problems. Precious metals, known for their high performance and scarcity, are indispensable our current lives. As nonrenewable resources, the demand and consumption of precious metals are increasing every year. Therefore, it is necessary to develop green and efficient precious metal recovery technologies to alleviate the environmental and resource crisis. This perspective summarizes various typical precious metal recovery strategies and pays attention to innovations from traditional technologies. We also evaluate and prospect the above methods based on secondary pollution and recovery efficiency.