They discover an innovative method that allows to recover precious metals of electronic waste using sustainable materials from dairy by -products and without using polluting chemicals. The details.
Gold can be extracted from discarded electronic artifacts. Photo: Unspash.
A team of researchers from ETH Zurich developed one Recycling Revolutionary Technology that could transform the Electronic waste management and at the same time reduce the environmental impact of traditional mining.
Thus, it was possible to design a sustainable process that allows Extract gold from discarded electronic devices Using waste from the food industry, specifically cheese.
Gold can be extracted from an old television. Photo Unspash.
Although it is not widely known, Many electronic devices for everyday use contain small amounts of 22 carat goldan essential metal in circuits due to its high conductivity and corrosion resistance. However, When these devices are discarded, that mineral is lost.
According to the International Telecommunications Union, in 2021 more than 57 million tons of electronic waste were generated in the world, much without being recycled correctly.
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What appliances can have gold inside
Several appliances and electronic devices that are in any home can contain small amounts of gold. Some examples are:
- TV and LED TVs and screens,
- Computers and laptops,
- Mobile phones,
- Digital cameras,
- Printers,
- DVD and Blu-Ray players,
- Microwave,
- Air conditioners.
Gold can be extracted from appliances. Photo: Unspash
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How to get gold from appliances
The advance of the Swiss team is based on an ingenious technique: Use protein nanofibrils obtained from dairy by -products, As the waste left by cheese production, to create bioactive sponges capable of capturing gold dissolved in acid solutions.
The process includes several key steps:
- Collection of dairy waste rich in protein.
- Transformation into nanofibrils by means of heat treatment and controlled acidity.
- Treatment of old electronic base plates, where gold and other metals dissolve in a solution.
- Capture of gold ions by protein sponges, which act as selective magnets.
- Thermal reduction of ions, which allows to obtain pure gold scales.
- Finally, the scales merge into a gold nugget with a purity of 91%.
The researchers say that With only 20 old computer base plates you can recover gold for a value of up to $ 34,000which highlights the high economic potential of the method.
