The purpose of this study is to provide an accurate kinetic description for the dissolution process of metals found in WEEE, such copper, zinc, and brass, using persulfate as a leaching oxidant. The factors affecting the performance and efficiency of the leaching process, such as stirring speed, persulfate concentration and temperature were separately investigated. It was observed that the leaching rate of the metals increased with the increase of temperature and persulfate concentration. We propose three models which accurately describe the variation in the surface of the solid for two kinds of geometries, a rectangular block, in the case of pure zinc dissolution, and a cylindrical rod for pure copper and brass dissolution. The apparent activation energy for the leaching of pure copper and zinc has been evaluated using Arrhenius expression and has been determined to be 5.2 x 10(4) J mol(-1) for copper and 3.5 x 10(4) J mol(-1) for zinc, in the range between 30 and 60 degrees C. The third model which describes the dissolution of brass has provided the best results. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.