The Indian Patent Office on 16 September 2026 granted Rikayaa Greentech Patent No. IN 602754 for an integrated process that refines tin from electronic waste and other secondary feedstocks to a minimum 99.9% purity, according to the company and filings reviewed by the International Tin Association.

The patent, titled "A Method for Refining Tin from E-Waste," was filed under application 202511050927. It covers the combined process rather than any single treatment stage, giving Rikayaa protection over the sequence of mechanical separation, vacuum treatment, chloride fluxing and zone refining as a unified route.

What does the purification sequence look like?

According to Rikayaa, the route begins with mechanical separation of a tin-bearing fraction from granulated scrap. Operators then move the concentrate through a vacuum treatment stage, apply chloride flux treatment to the molten material, and finish with zone refining.

The patent specification calls for a final product containing at least 99.9% tin, with purity verified by X-ray fluorescence (XRF) or ICP-OES analysis. That purity level clears the bar for most tin applications, including the solder alloys used on printed circuit boards and other electronic assemblies.

Why is the vacuum stage notable?

The most distinctive feature of the process is the temperature used during the vacuum step. Rikayaa states the stage operates at around 500–700°C, below the temperatures commonly reported for vacuum-based tin refining routes.

Rather than relying on the vacuum stage to strip all major impurities, the process divides the purification work across stages. The subsequent chloride flux treatment targets impurities including copper, iron and arsenic, reducing the need for more severe conditions during vacuum processing.

This design keeps the tin in the crucible as a molten residue rather than distilling it away. Rikayaa says this configuration can lower energy requirements and ease the purification burden on the final zone-refining stage.

How much capacity sits behind the patent?

Rikayaa's Baddi facility carries an annual refining capacity of 1,500 tonnes of refined tin. Not all of that volume currently comes from electronic waste. E-waste and printed circuit board scrap form part of a broader mix of secondary tin-bearing feedstocks processed at the site, and Rikayaa states that the proportion of e-waste-derived material is growing.

The company says the patented process allows more complex secondary materials to be refined to higher purity than would otherwise be possible. Tin is widely used in solder on printed circuit boards and other electronic assemblies, making end-of-life electronics a significant potential secondary source as PCB scrap volumes scale in India's recycling sector.

What decides the commercial outcome?

The economics of recovering tin from e-waste depend on feed composition, processing costs and the value of the recovered metal. Higher tin prices raise the potential value of these secondary resources, strengthening the incentive to recover tin that would otherwise remain in waste streams.

The next milestones to track: how quickly the e-waste share of the 1,500-tonne Baddi throughput rises, whether Rikayaa licenses the IN 602754 route to other secondary smelters, and how Indian regulators classify PCB-derived tin output under the country's evolving e-waste rules.