UK’s Royal Mint Plans To Extract Gold & Silver From Old Electronic Devices
Image ID 163190530 © via Dimitris Kolyris | Dreamstime.com
The Royal Mint in the UK has announced plans to build a plant in Wales that could help extract tons of gold, silver, and other precious metals from discarded electronic devices.
While most people are familiar with everyday gadgets such as smartphones, tablets, and laptops, not everyone knows the circuit boards and hardware within these devices are fitted with small quantities of these precious metals.
Due to the ever-increasing electronic waste, which often ends up in landfills, most of the gold and silver are never recovered. According to Reuters, the mint is teaming up with Canadian firm Excir, which has created a chemical solution to extract the metals, so they can be reused.
“It’s able to selectively pull out precious metals with high degree of purity,” explained the Royal Mint’s Chief Growth Officer, Sean Millard.
While the mint has already started processing the e-waste at a small scale, the new factory would allow it to “process hundreds of tonnes of e-waste per annum, generating hundreds of kilograms of precious metals.”
[via Reuters, cover image via Dimitris Kolyris | Dreamstime.com]
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