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A world without electronic waste

Nature Reviews Materials volume 6, pages 462–463 (2021)Cite this article

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The defossilization of our economy requires that materials for renewable energy conversion technologies are themselves green, renewable and circular. To this end, components such as batteries, electronic devices and electric motors should be recycled and regenerated, and produced solely from secondary raw materials.

History shows that innovation in technology directly follows the discovery of new materials. Time periods are named after the materials that most influenced them, such as the bronze and silicon ages. During the past centuries, energy conversion technologies went from the utilization of a handful of elements (mainly Fe, Ca and C) in the seventeenth century to dozens in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when the steam engine started to be employed for transport and electricity generation, requiring the use of new elements such as Co, Ce, Cu, Mn, Mg, Mo, Pb, Sn, Th, Pt, W, V and Cr.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Fraunhofer IWKS, Alzenau, Germany

    Anke Weidenkaff, Ronja Wagner-Wenz & Angelika Veziridis

  2. TU Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany

    Anke Weidenkaff, Ronja Wagner-Wenz & Angelika Veziridis

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  1. Anke Weidenkaff
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  2. Ronja Wagner-Wenz
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  3. Angelika Veziridis
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The authors contributed equally to all aspects of the article.

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Correspondence to Anke Weidenkaff.

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Weidenkaff, A., Wagner-Wenz, R. & Veziridis, A. A world without electronic waste. Nat Rev Mater 6, 462–463 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41578-021-00330-y

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