At European level, certain resources – especially metallic resources – have been identified as critical for industry and high-tech products, as they are not (or no longer) available at competitive prices in Europe, and are therefore imported. Our consumer society generates significant indirect deposits which would be useful to exploit (Urban Mining), such as post-consumer waste (Electrical and Electronic Equipment Waste in general) and industrial by-products (slag, electrical steel mill dust, etc.). Various types of computer equipment, photovoltaic panels, chip cards, batteries and accumulators are all sources of precious and minor metals with a high value that CTP is able to release, separating elements from one another, for the application of physico-chemical or hydrometallurgical processing for their retrieval.
