Created in 2018 by the Global Recycling Foundation, March 18th is Global Recycling Day, when we are reminded that recycling is key to protecting our planet and ensuring our vital natural resources do not run out. Managing Associate Oliver Parish investigates the technology which has been developed in response to the need for sustainable recycling methods, looking particularly at e-waste.
Our soaring production of waste is one of the key culprits of the current environmental crisis. Electronics, from phones to household appliances to electric car batteries, are responsible for the fastest-growing category of waste, known as e-waste. Nearly 62 billion kg of e-waste was generated worldwide in 2022, a 24% increase from 2019, expected to rise to 82 billion kg in 2030.
We only recycle about one-fifth of e-waste every year and traditional recycling techniques, such as smelting, are damaging for the environment. They are also ineffective in yielding pure metals which are a key element in electronics. Believe it or not, a tonne of discarded mobile phones is richer in gold than a tonne of gold ore. Recovering these metals is key, as the rapidly accelerating demand for electrical items in the last decade means that we are at risk of running out of the necessary materials. It is particularly difficult to recycle these metals from electronics, however, as they are all mixed together in very small amounts.
Consequently, novel recycling techniques which make the most out of scrapped electronics are still at the forefront of scientific innovation. There has been a significant increase in patent activity related to e-waste management in the past few years, rising from 220 to 787 applications per million between 2019 and 2022, yet few of these were for the recovery of raw materials. In particular, the need for innovation has created exciting opportunities for deep tech companies and start ups, as well as the collaboration between universities conducting insightful research and commercial companies.
The Royal Mint’s Gold Recovery
The Royal Mint, founded in 886AD, is the official maker of British coins. Hitting full capacity in February of this year, they built their Precious Metals Recovery Plant to retrieve precious metals from circuit boards, estimated to contain 7% of the world’s gold. The procedure, pioneered in collaboration with Excir, a Canadian cleantech company, uses patented technology involving a chemical solution to extract the gold from the boards. After the other metals, such as copper and silver, are removed, the extraction takes only four minutes, allowing the facility to process 4,000 tonnes of circuit boards and produce half a tonne of gold annually. Royal Mint’s factory is the first in the world dedicated to the sustainable retrieval of gold.
HyProMag’s Magnet Recycling
HyProMag was founded by Allan Walton and his colleagues, researchers at the University of Birmingham. Their technology enables magnets containing rare earth metals in hard-disk drives to be recycled into new magnets, and requires less processing and energy than other e-waste recycling methods. The waste is placed into a cylinder filled with hydrogen atoms which cause the magnets to crumble and separate from the other elements. The resulting product is sieved and grinded to create an alloy. A new, higher capacity plant in Birmingham will be ready to use in the second quarter of this year and there are plans for another in Pforzheim, Germany, allowing the company to hopefully reach a goal of extracting 350 tonnes of metal alloys a year.
Queen’s University Ionic Liquid Laboratories
Ionic liquids are low-melting salts which can be tailored at a molecular level to have special properties. They do not boil or burn, meaning they can be used safely for a range of purposes. Scientists at Queen’s University in Belfast saw the potential for ionic liquids to aid in the recovery of rare earth metals from magnets, developing recycling technology which they hope to apply to e-waste. The use of ionic liquids instead of strong acids or environmentally harmful solvents allows a cleaner and more efficient method of recycling, as well as producing metals at a very high purity level which can be turned into new magnets. Now taking steps to form the first full industrial-scale recycling plant in the UK, the startup company, Ionic Technologies, emerged from their research. They run a facility in Belfast for the processing of used magnets, where their plans to tackle e-waste will take place.
It turns out that the mountains of unwanted electronics which end up in landfill sites are a vital resource for tackling the climbing demand for electronics and fostering a circular economy. Transforming the way we deal with end-of-life electrical products will reduce the pile up of waste, limit the use of virgin materials, and reduce the emissions which are produced by ore extraction and the destruction of e-waste. It is important that we keep encouraging the innovation and dissemination of new technologies such as the ones above to help support our planet.
