Transforming e-waste into a strong, protective coating for metal

A typical recycling process converts large quantities of items made of a single material into more of the same. However, this approach isn't feasible for old electronic devices, or ''e-waste,'' because they contain small amounts of many different materials that cannot be readily separated. Now researchers report a selective, small-scale microrecycling strategy, which they use to convert old printed circuit boards and monitor components into a new type of strong metal coating.