Precious metals such as gold and platinum are valued materials for a variety of important applications, but their scarcity poses a risk of supply disruption. Recycling precious metals from waste provides a promising solution; however, conventional metallurgical methods bear high environmental costs and energy consumption. Here, we report a photocatalytic process that enables one to selectively retrieve seven precious metals—silver (Ag), gold (Au), palladium (Pd), platinum (Pt), rhodium (Rh), ruthenium (Ru) and iridium (Ir)—from waste circuit boards, ternary automotive catalysts and ores. The whole process does not involve strong acids or bases or toxic cyanide, but needs only light and photocatalysts such as titanium dioxide (TiO₂). More than 99% of the targeted elements in the waste sources can be dissolved and the precious metals recovered after a simple reducing reaction that shows a high purity (≥98%). By demonstrating success at the kilogram scale and showing that the catalysts can be reused more than 100 times, we suggest that this approach might be industry compatible. This research opens up a new path in the development of sustainable technologies for recycling the Earth’s resources and contributing to a circular economy.

贵金属（例如金和铂）是用于各种重要应用的有价值的材料，但是它们的稀缺性带来了供应中断的风险。从废物中回收贵金属提供了一种有前途的解决方案；然而，传统的冶金方法承担着高昂的环境成本和能源消耗。在这里，我们报告了一种光催化过程，该过程使人们能够选择性地回收七种贵金属-银（Ag），金（Au），钯（Pd），铂（Pt），铑（Rh），钌（Ru）和铱（Ir ）-来自废线路板，三元汽车催化剂和矿石。整个过程不涉及强酸或强碱或有毒的氰化物，而仅需要光和光催化剂，例如二氧化钛（TiO ₂）。经过简单的还原反应（纯度≥98％）后，废物源中超过99％的目标元素可以被溶解，贵金属得以回收。通过在千克规模上展示成功并表明催化剂可以重复使用100次以上，我们建议这种方法可能与行业兼容。这项研究开辟了开发可持续技术的新途径，以循环利用地球的资源并为循环经济做出贡献。