Researchers have recycled electronic waste and used significantly less energy than traditional methods. In the future, e-waste could take on a completely new meaning.
If you want to recycle electronic waste, you currently need very large amounts of energy and expensive machines to recycle efficiently. But that could change soon. In an experiment, a group of researchers has shown how not only energy consumption, but also all costs incurred can be drastically reduced.
Gold extraction with waste from the food industry
What exactly is used? Whey proteins are a byproduct left over after making cheese and other products. For a long time it was considered a waste product, but it is now used in sports as a valuable source of protein. The researchers have now discovered that whey proteins can be used to recover gold from electronic waste.
With whey proteins, the energy costs for the entire recycling process can be up to 50 times lower than the traditional route. The team led by scientist Raffaele Mezzenga from the Department of Health Sciences and Technology explained that using this method they were able to extract about 450 mg of gold from 20 motherboards. This is what our colleagues from Tomshardware.com report.
How does the process work? First, the electronic waste is dissolved in an acid bath to ionize the metals. The sponge is then dipped into the metal ion solution. In the bath, the ionized metals adhere to the protein sponge, like a magnet that picks up metal shavings.
Mezzenga and his research team found that most metal ions can adhere to the sponge, but gold ions do so much more efficiently. Finally, to extract the precious metals from the sponge, the protein sponge is heated to a temperature at which the gold ions turn into flakes and can be easily separated from the sponge. The researchers then collected these gold flakes.
More science: A team of researchers from China has presented a new passive cooling system for processors. This should not only significantly increase performance, but also be cheaper in the long term. In an initial practical test, the system is said to have worked very well. And there are other advantages.
Researchers present a new upgrade for processors – said to improve performance by up to 32% and be much cheaper