Bibliometric review of electro-electronic waste (WEEE) in the Web of Science database: groups’ production and main themes

Abstract

The waste of electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) has been one of the largest and growing wastes generated in the world, turning into a great challenge for humanity. The objective of the article was to map the scientific production on WEEE in the last decade (2012–2022), adopting a bibliometric analysis as a research method based on the survey of documents obtained from the Web of Science database. A total of 278 research and review articles were selected for analysis, with the use of Vosviewer and RStudio software. As a result, there was a significant increase in the number of publications in the last decade, with 86% of articles published between 2015 and 2022. In addition, it was possible to obtain the ranking of the most important authors, and the journals most used for publication of articles; it was found that the Asian, European and American continents had the greatest contribution. In the analysis of document coupling, combined with that of keywords, the main areas connected to WEEE currently researched were found: electronic waste recycling; environmental impacts; sustainability; circular economy; efficient e-waste management and e-waste recycling technologies; in addition, the keywords "e-waste" and "polybrominated diphenyl ethers" were the most frequent words used by the authors to represent the theme. It can be concluded that the theme has stood out over the last few years, with several publications providing managerial and political implications for researchers and professionals.