Researchers Figure Out How To Recycle Gold From Electronic Waste: New Method is Cheaper, Cleaner, Quicker, and Sustainable
This is pretty huge. Firstly, getting gold now is super difficult and often terrible for the environment (you can often see this on a small scale if you watch any of those gold mining shows). Finding a cleaner way to recycle gold (that would otherwise just end up in the trash!) is a huge win.
Secondly, this is great news for the environment. This is cleaner than old methods, much simpler, and helps close the circle on electronic waste, which is a huge, growing issue.
The biggest issue with gold is it is one of the least reactive chemical elements, making it difficult to dissolve, Foley explained. The common practice of mining for gold creates environmental issues because it requires large amounts of sodium cyanide. Meanwhile, recycling gold from electronic scraps like computer chips and circuits involves processes that are costly and have environmental implications.
“The environmental effects of current practices can be devastating,” said Foley, noting that the world produces more than 50 million tons of electronic waste per year and 80 per cent of that winds up in landfills…
Foley said it requires 5,000 litres of aqua regia to extract one kilogram of gold from printed circuit boards, none of which can be recycled. With the new U of S solution, one kilogram of gold can be extracted using only 100 litres of solution, all of which can be recycled over again. The overall cost of this solution is only 50 cents a litre.
With lower toxicity, cheaper cost and quicker extraction, Foley’s team has discovered an approach that could revolutionize the industry and be a veritable gold mine, so to speak. The next step for Foley and his team is to move the process into large-scale applications for gold recycling.
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