Electrochemical technologies for sustainable metal recovery from acid mine drainage: recent advances, challenges, and future perspectives.

Acid mine drainage (AMD) imposes severe global environmental risks and economic burdens, yet conventional remediation technologies often fail to recover valuable metals from this waste stream. Existing reviews primarily focus on pollutant removal rather than systematically integrating electrochemical metal recovery mechanisms, coupled process advancements, and scalability challenges specific to AMD matrices. This review addresses this critical gap by categorizing core electrochemical technologies (electrocoagulation, membrane-assisted systems, electrodeposition, capacitive deionization) based on their dual remediation-recovery mechanisms, summarizing recent progress in enhancing metal selectivity and recovery efficiency. It further analyzes emerging hybrid processes designed to mitigate matrix interference and low concentration limitations, discusses performance regulation strategies, and critically assesses technical bottlenecks (e.g., electrode fouling, high energy consumption) and industrial scaling barriers. Finally, it outlines future directions for adaptive, modular systems aligned with circular economy principles. This work provides a comprehensive framework to guide sustainable, value-added AMD management via electrochemical technologies.