Recyclers
Collect and shred e-waste at scale, then hand it on.
Pyrometallurgy downstream sends the critical metals straight to slag.
Europe’s next source of critical metals is its e-waste.
We recover base, precious, and critical metals from electronic waste with selective processes developed at the Helmholtz Institute Freiberg for Resource Technology.
Metal concentrate · Tantalum · Gallium · Titanium · Indium
The problem
Europe throws away the critical metals it needs.
Europe imports almost all of the critical raw materials it uses. Meanwhile, the same metals sit in its own electronic waste: already collected, already on European soil. Almost none of them are recovered. Most end up in slag, landfill or exports.
- Annual WEEE collected
- 5.2 Mt Electrical and electronic waste collected across the EU in 2023. Globally, e-waste is projected to grow from 62 Mt (2022) to 82 Mt by 2030. Source: Eurostat; UN Global E-waste Monitor 2024
- Metal value in e-waste
- $ 91 b Value of metals in the e-waste generated worldwide in 2022. Only around US$28 bn was recovered. Source: UN Global E-waste Monitor 2024
- EU recycling target
- 25 % Share of the EU's critical raw material consumption that should come from recycling by 2030. Source: EU Critical Raw Materials Act
Of US$91 bn in metals, less than a third comes back.
Recovered
US$28 bn
31% of the value
Recycled into secondary raw materials
Not recovered
US$62 bn
69% of the value
Landfilled, incinerated or informally processed
Source: UN Global E-waste Monitor 2024. Figures rounded as published.
Critical metals in e-waste
Present in small amounts, spread across the displays, capacitors and chips of the devices that reach recyclers.
- 49 In Indium Display glass (indium tin oxide)
- 73 Ta Tantalum Capacitors
- 22 Ti Titanium Ceramic capacitors and components
- 31 Ga Gallium Chips and LEDs (GaAs, GaN)
The value chain gap
Nobody recovers the critical metals. That's the gap we fill.
Everyone in Europe's chain does their job well, yet tantalum, titanium and indium still slip through every handover.
Smelters
Recover copper, gold and silver efficiently and at volume.
Everything outside that window passes through the furnace uncaptured.
Refiners
Have the capacity to refine tantalum, titanium and indium.
They need high-purity concentrates that barely exist at scale in Europe.
WEEEfficient
We take the fraction everyone writes off and hand back a refinery-ready feed.
Low-grade boards in from recyclers. Three graded concentrate streams out to smelters and refiners, including the critical metals that never made it out of the furnace before.
Newly captured
73 Ta Tantalum 22 Ti Titanium 31 Ga Gallium 49 In Indium
How it works
From e-waste to refinery-ready concentrates.
Three selective, low-temperature processes, each matched to a different part of the e-waste stream and each delivering a concentrate that refiners can use.
Flotation
Froth flotation
79 Au Gold 47 Ag Silver 46 Pd Palladium 29 Cu Copper 50 Sn Tin 30 Zn Zinc
Input Shredded printed circuit boards
Froth flotation separates precious and base metals from the plastic and ceramic fraction of circuit boards.
The result is one dense metal concentrate.
Proven on industrial e-waste. Ready to test on yours.
Output Metal concentrate
Test your material 
In development MAGSEL
Selective carrier magnetic separation
73 Ta Tantalum 22 Ti Titanium 57–71 REE Rare earth elements
Input Flotation tailings from circuit boards
Our selective magnetic separation process recovers tantalum, titanium and rare earth elements.
These are critical metals that conventional smelting loses to slag.
Recovering what smelters can't.
Output Tantalum, titanium & rare earth concentrates
Discuss offtake 
© HZDR / Frank Bierstedt Ready for partner trials Biohydrometallurgy
Bacteria-assisted leaching
79 Au Gold 47 Ag Silver 46 Pd Palladium 49 In Indium 31 Ga Gallium
Input Tailings from flotation and MAGSEL · display screen glass
Bacteria selectively dissolve the gold and precious metals left in flotation and MAGSEL tailings.
They also recover indium from end-of-life display glass.
Microbes recover what the other processes leave behind.
Output Precious & critical metals
Partner with us Results
Tested on real industry material.
Different tests, one outcome: we recover what conventional recycling loses.
Lab-scale results on end-of-life e-waste, not modelled projections.
- 29 Cu Copper Copper
- 16% → 78% Copper grade, from low-grade circuit boards to concentrate 75% of the copper in about 15% of the mass Flotation · industry-provided sample
- 49 In Indium Indium
- 95% Indium recovery from display screens Biohydrometallurgy
Why WEEEfficient
Built for the e-waste conventional recycling undervalues.
Makes low-grade boards worth shipping
Flotation turns bulky low-grade boards into a small, rich concentrate.
Less mass to ship and pay treatment fees on, and better payables for the metal inside.
Recovers what smelters lose
Tantalum, titanium and indium end up in slag or landfill today.
Our processes are built to capture them.
Low temperature by design
All three processes run at low temperature — no furnaces.
Selective separation and bacteria replace heat.
Slots into existing chains
Recyclers send us the low-grade boards and screens they already collect.
Refiners get feed they can actually use. No chain rebuild required.
Team
The people behind the technology.
Engineers and scientists from the Helmholtz Institute Freiberg for Resource Technology, now taking the technologies they developed in the lab to industry.
-
Ali Hassan
CEO & Co-founder
Strategy, partnerships & funding
-
Zahra Nourizenouz
Chief Product Officer
Process integration & scale-up
-
Emma Pustlauk
Co-founder & Lead Scientist
MAGSEL
-
Himanshu Kachroo
Lead Scientist
Biohydrometallurgy
-
Lakshmi Viswamsetty
Lead Scientist
Metallurgy & flotation
-
Dominic Illing
Lead Engineer
Mechanical processing
Roadmap
What’s next.
From lab-proven processes to technology running at recyclers and refiners across Europe.
Support
Supported by the institutions building Europe's resource independence.
Federal Agency for Breakthrough Innovation
Helmholtz Institute Freiberg for Resource Technology, part of the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf.
HZDR Innovation GmbH is the technology-transfer company of the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, turning its research into products, licences and spin-offs.
Funding
WEEEfficient is funded by SPRIND through the Tech Metal Transformation Challenge, which supports technologies that turn secondary sources into critical metal supply for Europe.
In the press
Where WEEEfficient has been covered.
Articles and broadcast coverage of our funding and the technology behind it.
Freie Presse 07 Jan 2026 Metallrückgewinnung aus Elektroschrott Metal recovery from e-waste: a million-euro research grant for Freiberg scientists.
Read
chemeurope.com 07 Jan 2026 Huge opportunity for the recovery of technology metals Freiberg researchers secure innovation funding for e-waste recycling.
Read
© ZDF-Morgenmagazin ZDF-Morgenmagazin 28 Apr 2026 moma future: Handy-Recycling How researchers recover the metals inside old phones.
Watch
© MDR SACHSENSPIEGEL MDR SACHSENSPIEGEL 29 Jan 2026 Freiberger Forscher entwickeln Methode zum Recycling wertvoller Rohstoffe Inside the HIF lab: the process that recovers valuable metals from old phones.
Watch
diesachsen.de 07 Jan 2026 Freiberger Team holt Millionenförderung A Freiberg team wins million-euro funding for clever phone recycling.
Read
oiger.de 07 Jan 2026 Häcksel-Schaum-Magnet-Maschine aus Sachsen A shred–froth–magnet machine from Saxony that pulls gold and rare earths out of e-waste.
Read
freiberg.de 09 Jan 2026 Riesenchance für die Rückgewinnung von Technologiemetallen The city of Freiberg on the team’s SPRIND funding.
Read
konstruktionspraxis 12 Jan 2026 Technologiemetalle aus Elektroschrott rückgewinnen Trade press on the three-stage process for recovering technology metals.
Read
FAQ
Questions we get asked.
Anything else, or something specific to your feedstock? Talk to us directly.
About WEEEfficient
WEEEfficient is a German company that recovers precious and critical metals from electronic waste. It was founded in 2026 as a spin-off from the Helmholtz Institute Freiberg for Resource Technology, part of the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, and is funded by SPRIND through the Tech Metal Transformation Challenge.
WEEE stands for Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment, the EU term for e-waste. Combined with 'efficient', the name reflects the company's aim: recovering more value from e-waste, with selective, low-temperature processes.
WEEEfficient is based in Freiberg, Saxony, Germany.
All three processes are validated at lab scale on real end-of-life e-waste, including printed circuit boards, capacitors and display glass. The next step is partner trials on industry material, ahead of a pilot line.
Recyclers: material trials and toll-processing agreements. Refiners: offtake for our concentrates. Funders and investors: we're always happy to talk about our progress and plans.
About the technology
WEEEfficient recovers precious, base and critical metals. Flotation concentrates the precious and base metals (gold, silver, palladium, copper, tin and zinc). The critical metals tantalum, titanium and rare earth elements are captured by MAGSEL selective carrier magnetic separation. Residual gold, indium and gallium are recovered in the final biohydrometallurgy stage.
Pyrometallurgy is very good at copper, gold and silver, and sends tantalum, titanium and indium straight to the slag pile. Our three low-temperature processes capture those critical metals instead, and produce concentrates a smelter or refiner can take directly.
Low-grade printed circuit boards contain mostly plastic and little metal, so they are expensive to ship and earn low payments from smelters. WEEEfficient uses froth flotation to separate the metals from the plastic, turning low-grade boards into a small, rich concentrate. In lab trials on industry-provided material, copper was upgraded from 16% to 78%.
Indium sits in a thin layer on the glass of LCD and other display screens and is rarely recovered today. WEEEfficient uses biohydrometallurgy, in which bacteria selectively dissolve the indium from end-of-life display glass. Lab trials have recovered 95% of the indium.
When e-waste is smelted, tantalum, titanium and rare earth elements end up in slag and are lost. WEEEfficient is developing MAGSEL, a selective carrier magnetic separation process that recovers them as concentrates.
MAGSEL is a selective carrier magnetic separation process developed at the Helmholtz Institute Freiberg for Resource Technology. WEEEfficient uses it to recover critical metals such as tantalum, titanium and rare earth elements from electronic waste.
Biohydrometallurgy uses microorganisms to dissolve metals from solid materials. WEEEfficient uses it to recover gold and other precious metals left over from its other processes, and indium from display screens.
WEEEfficient currently works with low- and high-grade printed circuit boards, display screen glass and capacitors. Recyclers can send samples of their own material for trials.
WEEEfficient's processes run at low temperature without furnaces, using flotation, magnetic separation and bacteria instead of heat. They also recover metals that would otherwise be lost to slag or landfill, reducing the need for newly mined material.
Get in touch
Let's recover what the world can't afford to waste.
Recyclers, refiners, funders and investors: talk to us about material trials, our concentrates and where we're heading.
Recyclers Send us your low-grade circuit boards or display screens for a trial with flotation or biohydrometallurgy.
Email us
Refiners Talk to us about our metal concentrate, our tantalum, titanium and rare earth concentrates, and the precious and critical metals from bioleaching.
Email us
Funders & investors We're always happy to share our progress and plans.
Email us