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How To Mine Gold From Electronics | World Wide Waste - YouTube
Channel: Business Insider
[2]
this liquid gold
[3]
came from a pile of circuit boards
[7]
and these days there could be more gold
[10]
in a landfill
[11]
than in a mine but extracting it
[14]
is an expensive and polluting process
[17]
often carried out at toxic dumps
[22]
now a new zealand startup has found a
[24]
cleaner and safer way to do that
[28]
and its secret ingredient comes from
[30]
nature
[31]
microscopic organisms that evolved to
[34]
absorb
[35]
precious metals but can this complex
[38]
process reinvent how we deal with the
[40]
world's fastest growing waste stream
[43]
we visited the test plan to find out
[49]
mint innovation begins with the circuit
[52]
boards that are inside nearly every
[53]
electronic device
[56]
so this is how the electronics circuit
[58]
boards is how we receive them
[60]
cut up treated into pieces the company
[63]
says it sources all raw material from a
[66]
local recycler
[68]
exporting waste is an absolutely
[70]
abhorrent thing for human race to be
[71]
doing
[72]
the company's founders think that if
[74]
it's easier to get valuable metals from
[76]
e-waste
[77]
countries will choose to deal with it
[78]
locally a lot of the gold's wrapped up
[81]
in these
[81]
chips the first step is to grind the
[84]
circuit boards into a sand-like
[86]
consistency workers shovel this sand
[90]
into a reactor
[91]
which mixes it with inexpensive
[93]
chemicals those
[94]
acids and oxidants are pretty commonly
[96]
available industrial chemicals
[98]
next machines pump the mixture into a
[101]
filter press
[102]
to separate the liquids from the solids
[107]
this blue fluid contains a high
[109]
concentration of copper
[111]
tin and other less valuable metals
[115]
mint uses electricity to pull out the
[117]
copper we simply put that through
[119]
a series of plates pass it over that
[122]
that have electric current flowing
[123]
through them
[124]
and that plates out the copper from
[126]
solution
[129]
the metals that pay the bills are the
[130]
gold the palladium
[132]
the copper and the tin because they're
[134]
most abundant and most valuable
[136]
but at this step in mint's process
[138]
palladium and gold
[139]
are still stuck in the solids they're
[143]
harder to dissolve
[144]
and require another chemical bath for
[146]
the precious metals you need something a
[148]
little bit more oomph
[149]
so that's why we break into two stages
[154]
the next step in mint's process makes it
[156]
one of a kind
[158]
and it requires the help of nature
[161]
we're the first people to use
[162]
microorganisms to selectively
[164]
concentrate
[165]
precious metals we're kind of inventing
[167]
the whole technology
[168]
along the way
[173]
mint's team identified these tiny
[175]
helpers in 2017
[177]
through a series of research trips to
[179]
places like abandoned mines
[181]
or fields with rusty equipment given
[184]
enough pressure
[186]
and time microbes seem to find a way to
[188]
thrive in indian environment
[190]
they collected species of bacteria and
[192]
fungi that evolved to bond with specific
[195]
metals
[196]
microorganisms recover gold they also
[198]
recover a palladium
[200]
these are not pathogens by any stretch
[202]
of imagination
[204]
so would i drink a vial of them probably
[206]
not but i wouldn't drink a vial of a lot
[208]
of things so
[210]
over several hours the microbes will
[212]
gain weight as they absorb
[214]
precious metal ions and we've now got a
[217]
concentrated microbial paste that
[219]
contains
[220]
a good portion of precious metal when
[222]
the paste dries out
[224]
the gold particles in it start to appear
[227]
purple gold has this funny property that
[230]
when it is
[230]
in small nano particles as well i mean
[233]
gold in color have this hue of blues to
[235]
rinse
[237]
the mixture is ready for the last step
[240]
so this is where the final bit of magic
[243]
happens where we burn off
[244]
the microbial part just leaving the
[247]
metal part
[248]
behind that they've captured our product
[250]
is a
[251]
gold rich ash that goes to a refiner who
[254]
is the one who turns it into 99.99
[258]
gold it takes one week to extract
[261]
150 grams of gold from one ton
[264]
of circuit boards the founders carry
[268]
around this solid gold coin
[270]
to show what that looks like is it pure
[273]
gold
[273]
that's pure gold super heavy
[277]
it seems like a lot of work for a small
[279]
payoff
[281]
is it really worth the trouble mints
[284]
founders say yes
[285]
because it's getting harder to mine
[287]
precious metals from the earth
[289]
the big gold mines are recovering
[291]
literally grams
[292]
three four five grams of gold from a ton
[294]
of rock
[295]
81 of gold that's identified today is
[298]
already above the ground
[299]
and as gold mines are depleted the
[302]
amount of e-waste generated globally
[304]
has increased steadily over the past
[306]
decades
[307]
if those trends continue by 2050
[310]
we'll have to deal with 110 million
[313]
metric tons of e-waste
[314]
every year that's like every person in
[317]
the world throwing away a countertop
[319]
microwave
[321]
up to a fifth of all e-waste moves
[322]
across borders
[324]
likely ending up in developing countries
[326]
where workers process it by hand
[328]
at illegal dump sites activist jim
[331]
puckett
[332]
has spent over 25 years tracking how
[334]
e-waste ends up
[336]
in these toxic environments the entire
[338]
life cycle of electronics
[340]
unfortunately disproportionately burdens
[343]
the global south
[344]
with the real environmental harm and
[346]
pollution
[349]
thousands of people worldwide make a
[351]
living extracting copper from e-waste
[354]
primarily by burning it inhaling the
[357]
fumes
[358]
damages workers lungs and increases
[361]
their risk for cancer
[362]
and other illnesses we are struggling
[365]
for a year
[366]
because the heat is day where the smoke
[369]
they disturb us other studies have found
[371]
that large e-waste dumps
[373]
contaminate water soil and crops
[387]
even if e-waste is properly recycled the
[390]
final product still needs to go to a
[392]
smelter
[393]
the energy intensive endpoint for most
[396]
mining operations
[399]
mint's long-term goal is to make it easy
[401]
and profitable
[402]
for cities to process their e-waste
[404]
locally
[406]
we need to kind of get this you know
[408]
really really cranking throughout the
[409]
world and that's probably a 20-year
[411]
vision
[411]
the company is planning full-scale
[413]
facilities in australia
[415]
and the united kingdom this smaller
[418]
plant in auckland new zealand
[420]
was built to demonstrate how mint's
[422]
process works
[423]
it processes about one metric ton of
[425]
circuit boards per week
[427]
but larger plants like the one they're
[429]
building in australia
[430]
will process 10 metric tons per day
[434]
that would make the bigger plant able to
[436]
process about one percent of all the
[438]
e-waste australia produces
[440]
annually the planned larger facilities
[442]
will be almost
[443]
entirely automated it's pretty light
[446]
touch from a personnel perspective
[448]
might have three people on the shop
[449]
floor any one time running 24 7.
[452]
the small number of employees would have
[454]
limited contact with e-waste
[456]
keeping them safe from exposure to toxic
[459]
compounds
[461]
however even if mint can realize its
[464]
dream of a plant in every major city
[466]
the founders face another problem that's
[468]
completely out of their control
[470]
unfortunately electronic waste generally
[473]
is getting
[474]
less and less valuable over time as a
[477]
commodity
[479]
manufacturers are learning to build
[480]
gadgets with less precious metal
[483]
mint's team is researching other types
[485]
of waste they can run through this
[487]
process
[488]
like car parts as for solving the global
[491]
e-waste problem
[493]
jim puckett remains skeptical that any
[495]
form of recycling is the answer
[497]
i'm not saying don't go ahead with these
[499]
techniques we're certainly gonna have
[500]
old circuit boards around for a long
[502]
time
[503]
and we're gonna have to deal with them
[504]
so let's move on but
[506]
we've got to turn off the tap that tap
[510]
is controlled by the companies who
[511]
manufacture electronics
[514]
most of whom have no legal or financial
[517]
incentive
[517]
to design products that can be recycled
[520]
it's an overflowing bathtub you can't
[523]
run around with mops
[524]
and say oh my god we got to mop this up
[526]
we got to mop that up and we have a
[527]
better mop here and a better mop there
[530]
when the tap is pouring water into the
[532]
bathtub it's overflowing down the stairs
[535]
this is the problem we have is the tap
[537]
of our waste is not being turned back
[553]
you
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