The 25-gram household device that we all throw away and contains 22-carat gold
Researchers have found a sustainable way to recover gold from discarded electronics using a technique that you may struggle to believe.
In our tech-obsessed world, electronic waste is piling up faster than ever. Old smartphones, outdated laptops, and forgotten gadgets often end up collecting dust in drawers or, worse, in landfills. But what if these discarded devices held a hidden treasure?
That’s right. Buried within their circuits and connectors are tiny amounts of precious metals – including gold. And now, thanks to an ingenious new method, that gold might be easier to recover than ever before.
How to get the gold out of my electronic devices?
Gold is a key component in many electronic devices, prized for its excellent conductivity and resistance to corrosion. But extracting it from e-waste has traditionally been a messy, expensive, and environmentally damaging process. Toxic chemicals and high energy consumption have made gold recovery a challenge – until now.
Researchers at ETH Zurich have come up with a surprisingly simple and sustainable solution: cheese. More specifically, they’ve developed a method to recover gold from e-waste using whey protein, a byproduct of cheese production. By transforming this protein into a sponge-like material, the team created a filter that selectively absorbs gold ions from a solution of dissolved electronic components.
Once the sponge has soaked up the gold, it’s heated, leaving behind a shiny gold nugget. In one experiment, the researchers extracted a 450-milligram nugget of 22-karat gold from just 20 old computer motherboards. It’s a process that’s as efficient as it is innovative.
A ‘green’ cheesy solution to gold extraction
What makes this method truly groundbreaking is its economic and environmental potential. The researchers estimate that for every dollar invested in the process, up to fifty dollars’ worth of gold can be recovered. Even better, by using a food industry byproduct, the approach tackles two waste problems at once: electronic waste and cheese production waste.
New sustainable method turns waste into gold! ETH Zurich researchers use protein sponge derived from food industry byproduct to recover precious metal from electronic waste. ♻️ https://t.co/LkpuiFUMk1 #ProteinSponge #ElectronicWaste #SustainableGold @MezzengaRaf
— ETH Zurich (@ETH_en) March 1, 2024
This isn’t just a win for scientists - it’s a win for the planet. By making gold recovery more sustainable and cost-effective, the method could revolutionize how we handle e-waste, turning our discarded gadgets into veritable goldmines.
So, before you toss out that old smartphone or laptop, think twice. Hidden within its circuits could be a small fortune in gold.
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