Electronic Waste Recycling
Challenge
Recoup of precious metals that are deposited on eScrap.
Deposition
Gold, Platinum, Silver, Palladium, Indium, Copper, Nickel and many other metals
Substrate
eScrap, chips, motherboards, server components, phones, cell phones
Results
Several processes were used to successfully recoup the precious metals and other metals used in the various substrates and components.
Two of our clients, market leaders in precision cleaning, with involvement in cleaning precision parts, asked us to come up with a concept for precious metals recycling from eScrap (server/computer/phone motherboards, chips, etc.).
Currently, refiners usually incinerate (burn down) the eScrap and extract the gold and other precious metals particles from the resulting ash.
Since the incineration is:
(1) carried out at high temperatures,
(2) oxygen is used, and most importantly
(3) thin layers of precious metals are involved,
the FIRST LOSS of PRECIOUS METALS at the refineries is from this step. It is mainly due to the fact that thin layers of precious metals behave quite differently than larger pieces of precious metals during incineration.
The next step is to dissolve the precious metals (it is called extraction) in liquid chemicals (current state-of-art aqua regia for instance), leaving the ash behind (undissolved). This step is responsible for the SECOND LOSS of PRECIOUS METALS. Especially since the surface area of the ash is very large and some of the gold will be undissolved and the amount of gold that is left behind on the surface of the ash is difficult to control.
Having all of that in mind, we knew that ideally we were looking for a technology that would:
(1) Eliminate the incineration (burning), i.e. to avoid the first loss of precious metals, as discussed above;
(2) Dissolve the deposited metals in a way that the maximum get’s recovered, i.e. minimize the second loss of precious and non-precious metals;
(3) Make the chemical compounds of the precious and non-precious metals simple to separate from each other preferably during dissolution;
(4) Be flexible so that we could avoid using a furnace and the electrochemical purification of silver;
(5) Avoid using electrochemistry for (i) separation of indium, (ii) purification of indium and (iii) vacuum smelting of indium;
(6) Keep the costs down of recouping the copper, nickel and some of the other non-precious elements, since their value was low based on current market pricing;
(7) Allow recycling of non-precious metals at remote or non-industrial eScrap recycling locations, i.e. produce and preferably smelt the non-precious metals without the use furnaces and electrochemical processing;
(8) Utilize the copper found in the eScrap and convert it to the most advantageous form to create an additional income from the waste products;
(9) Be inexpensive overall, i.e. not be in a situation where the income derived from recouping the precious metals ends up paying for the cost of recouping the non-precious metals;
(10) Be robust and simple enough to scale-up, be used in remote locations and performed by unskilled labor.
Since both clients had the same requirements in recouping precious metals, but different requirements in terms of recouping the other metals, we used two processes:
First Process
Sequential extraction of metals and/or precious metals (Patent Pending), followed by the new Alchemy Rich Solutions patented technological process, which dissolves the metals of the server/computer/phone motherboards. The gold and other precious metals (platinum, palladium, silver) are separated and obtained in solid form in high purity even in the worst of conditions. The technology allows recouping other metals and/or the salts or complexes of those metals including, copper, indium and nickel, etc.
Second Process
“Chemical milling“ of motherboards (Patent Pending), followed by the new Aqua Regia Solutions technological process which dissolves the metals of the server/computer/phone motherboards. The gold and other precious metals (platinum, palladium, silver) are separated and obtained in solid form in high purity even in the worst of conditions. This technology leaves the non-precious metals, metals like copper, indium and nickel, etc. in the solution without further processing.
We succeeded in solving and delivering a solution for the goals we defined in points 1 to 6 and 9 and 10, above, by using a combination of patented or patent pending Alchemy Rich Solutions technologies. Points 7 and 8 need tweaking, client-by-client depending on the scrap to be processed and the client’s requirements for recouping.
The short version of the technology, number 2 above (“chemical milling”) can be seen in our video below. It shows that the chemicals are being rotated around the “central point,” i.e. around the eScrap while the precious and non-precious metals are extracted (dissolved in liquid chemicals) off of the eScrap.