2.1. WEEE materials
The PCs and PCBs were obtained from an authorized Italian WEEE collector after manual dismantling/disassembly of end of life (EoL) household computers.
PCBs wastes are characterized by significant heterogeneity and high complexity with a relatively low metal content: metals are present as a coating of various thickness, and as component of solders, capacitors, resistors etc. The PCBs were checked to manually remove connecting devices when present before undergoing leaching processes. The plastic fraction from PCBs was mixed with that from external housing of PCs.