New way to turn e-waste into gold found

Scientists have discovered a new financially-viable and environmentally-friendly way to recover and recycle gold from electronic waste, an approach that could revolutionise the industry and be a veritable gold mine.

“We’ve found a simple, cheap and environmentally benign solution that extracts gold in seconds, and can be recycled and reused,” said Stephen Foley, professor at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada.

“This could change the gold industry,” said Prof. Foley.

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.

With lower toxicity, cheaper cost and quicker extraction, the team has discovered an approach that could revolutionise the industry and be a veritable gold mine, researchers said.

“The environmental effects of current practices can be devastating,” said Foley, noting that the world produces more than 50 million tonnes of electronic waste per year and 80 per cent of that winds up in landfills.

What Foley, along with research associate Loghman Moradi and Ph.D. student Hiwa Salimi, have discovered is a process using a solution — acetic acid combined with very small amounts of an oxidant and another acid — that extracts gold efficiently and effectively without the environmental concerns of current industry practices.