The Royal Mint just announced that it has built a pioneering new factory that provides a more sustainable source of gold and reduces reliance on mining. A new facility will be extracting gold from printed circuit boards (PCBs) found in everyday items, such as TVs, laptops and mobile phones, in minutes.
“The factory has scaled the innovative technology from laboratory to an industrial level for the first time and has the capacity to process up to 4,000 tonnes of PCBs from e-waste every year. It provides the UK’s oldest company with a new, more sustainable way to “mine” high-quality 999.9 purity gold. Recovered gold is already being used in the luxury jewellery collection, 886 by The Royal Mint.
According to the United Nations’ Global E-waste Monitor, the generation of worldwide e-waste is rising by 2.6 million tonnes every year. A record 62 million tonnes of e-waste was produced in 2022, up 82% from 2010.”
The United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), Sustainable Cycles (SCYCLE) Programme, reported that the world’s generation of electronic waste is rising five times faster than documented e-waste recycling. “A record 62 million tonnes (Mt) of e-waste was produced in 2022, Up 82% from 2010; On track to rise another 32%, to 82 million tonnes, in 2030; Billions of dollars worth of strategically-valuable resources squandered, dumped; Just 1% of rare earth element demand is met by e-waste recycling….Worldwide, the annual generation of e-waste is rising by 2.6 million tonnes annually, on track to reach 82 million tonnes by 2030, a further 33% increase from the 2022 figure.”
More Recycling Programs Needed
“Production of electronic devices requires a significant amount of resources – metals, plastics and glass – many of which can be recovered through recycling. For example, the production of one desktop computer takes at least 530 pounds of fossil fuels, 48 pounds of chemicals, and 1.5 tons of water. Cell phones are also resource-intensive, composed of precious metals such as silver, gold, palladium and copper. Recovering these and other materials through recycling uses a fraction of the energy needed to mine new metals.
In addition, the presence of hazardous materials such as lead, nickel and mercury in some electronics make safe disposal particularly important. These metals could pose risks to human health or the environment if improperly handled.”
The issue of abundant electronics waste was such a concern that the EPA issued an electronics challenge for states to rethink business as usual and commit to innovative and responsible end-of-life electronics management. However, there are still some issues in recovering the metals as we noted in Thinking About the New iPhone X? Don’t Forget to Recycle Your Old Cell Phone. Here’s How… Many of the electronics that are ending up at scrapyards and metal recycling facilities, are shredded and combined with other metals, making it impossible to determine the exact content without careful analysis.
Utilizing XRF Technology to Help Find Precious Metals in Recycling Facilities
Knowing what’s inside that pile of shredded material is crucial to the profits and safety of scrap metal operations. Several years ago, the EPA cited some examples of how ewaste recycling can be a boon:
- One metric ton of circuit boards can contain 40 to 800 times the amount of gold and 30 to 40 times the amount of copper mined from one metric ton of ore in the US.
- Recycling facilities can recover 35,000 pounds of copper, 772 pounds of silver, 75 pounds of gold, and 33 pounds of palladium for every one million cell phones (PDF)
In addition, many Rare Earth Elements (REEs) can be found in recycling yards because REEs are critical components in mobile phones and other consumer electronics such as televisions, computers, and cameras, as well as high-power magnets, fluorescent lamps, catalytic converters and metal alloys. (Rare earth elements aren’t actually rare, but they are extremely difficult and costly to mine, so recycling has been a viable alternative.) Rare earth elements are also known as the “Green Elements” because they are essential to many green energy technologies such as hybrid car batteries and wind turbines.
Fast, accurate scrap metal sorting is a fundamental part of the scrap yard operation to increase recovery of reusable materials so that the metal can be sold for remanufacturing into new products. These scrap metal recyclers most likely know what they’ll find in products that are still intact, but if the devices are shredded there could be any number of metals in varying quantities, along with hazardous materials.
In these situations, handheld x-ray fluorescence (XRF) analyzers are the best way to positively identify numerous alloys, rapidly analyze their chemical composition at material transfer points, and guarantee the quality of their product to their customers. These portable XRF analyzers can help detect if electronics — including printed circuit board (PCB) finishes, leads, terminations, solder and internal/external interconnects — contain restricted substances, and help ensure that toxic substances, including lead, mercury, and cadmium, are kept out of the recycling stream and future products.
Watch Out for Radiation Contamination at Recycling Facilities
Besides handheld analyzers, there are also Scrap Monitoring Systems that monitor vehicles entering the scrap yard, or processes within the facility, and provide accurate, reliable detection of radiation sources commonly found in scrap metal. The system helps scrap yard operators reject radioactive materials before they enter the recycling stream and then harm people or the environment.
I don’t see electronics going away any time soon, but maybe with the help of more companies following the example of the Royal Mint, we’ll see more of the electronics components shredded, sorted, melted down, and manufactured into new devices, jewelry, and other items.
Additional Reading
- Portable Scrap Metal Recycling Solutions
- Infographic: 10 Reasons (and Places) Recyclers Need Radiation Detection
- Video: 30 Years of Niton Handheld XRF Analyzers
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published Sep 3, 2019, under the author Tim Johnson, but has been refreshed with updated information.
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