Title:
New polymer easily captures gold extracted from e-waste
Author:
Scott K Johnson
Published:
arsTechnica, 28 June 2020
https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/06/new-polymer-easily-captures-gold-extracted-from-e-waste/
From the article:
One thing holding back e-waste recycling is the actual recycling process itself. We need cheaper, safer, cleaner, or more effective methods of separating and recovering the valuable elements from electronics before we can make the whole endeavor more attractive and profitable. Some current methods use large amounts of energy to melt components down, but chemistry could provide some tempting alternatives.
The researchers’ gold-scrubber is based on an organic compound called a porphyrin. Linked together in a polymer, it possesses lots and lots of little pores that, energetically, want to host a metal atom. That’s the kind of structure chemists look for to help with recycling.
See also scholarly article:
Hong, Y [et al.]. 2020. Precious metal recovery from electronic waste by a porous . PNAS, 22 June 2020
https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/06/17/2000606117