The market
The United States has scored about three billion units of electronic devices in the past decade. The volume has increased to 450 million electronic waste units per year. American consumers get rid of more than 110,000 computers per day. Electronic waste constitutes the category of solid municipal waste whose growth is the fastest and ended in landfills or incinerators. Unfortunately, on average, less than 10 % of this waste is recycled. Global computers' sales in 2012 reached 426 million units. The production of electronic equipment consumes more energy, metals and chemicals than any other produced in a modern home.
Unlike most household appliances such as refrigerators and televisions, most of the energy of electronic devices is consumed in manufacturing (81 %) and not in the use of equipment (19 %). Electronic waste has an average concentration of higher metals than any ore. A metric tonne of electronic computers waste contains more gold than that extracted from 17 tonnes of ore. A tonne of used cell phones, good for 6,000 handsets, contains 3.5 kg of silver, 340 grams of gold, 140 grams of palladium and 130 kg of copper. Japanese consumers have already threw more than a billion mobile phones, and with them 3,500 tonnes of money. Each EU citizen leaves 40 kg of electronic waste behind him per year.
While some are interested in heavy metals such as mercury, lead, cadmium and flame delayers, which represent a real danger to public health, others assess integrated energy in treated materials and the possibility to recycle. The recycling electronic scrap metal should be tripled by 2015 to reach $ 14.7 billion. The price of reinforcing printed circuits reached in January 2010 a historic summit of $ 5.36 per book, 50 % more than the same month a year earlier. This value is the estimated intrinsic value of the metal incorporated into the panel.
Innovation
Microbes have the ability to go. Chélation refers to the affinity of bacteria for a specific metal. For millions of years, microorganisms have played an active role in the mobilization of metals from rocks, minerals and soil. Living cells purify and treat metals and make them available to produce enzymes, vitamins and genes. Living cells have the means to treat metals. Better still, living cells can recognize and bind specific metals and, therefore, if you crush e -dust electronic waste with sufficiently small particles and create an environment that links metals to the surface, we can obtain pure metals By recycling electronic waste without melting it.
Scientists like Professor Irving Devoe of McGill University in Montreal in Canada had studied bacteria that cause meningitis. Dr Devoeʼs data showed that the microbe was extremely effective in acquiring iron, copper and zinc and quickly realized that there are many life forms that trap metals. With his colleagues, he designed porous glass beats with a large affinity for 42 different metals, including chrome, cadmium, copper and mercury. However, their treatment with lots turned out to be too heavy. Investment and operating expenses were too high to compete with the gold prices that skyrocketed on the market.
Henry Kolesinski and Robert Cooley are former researchers at Polaroid and Waters Associates respectively, and as experts in film technologies, they designed a simple machine that transforms the process by lots with balls into a continuous extraction of metals on A thin plastic sheet. Their pioneer company Prime Separations (USA) has designed a small device with a low capital cost which demonstrates viability using crushed Japanese cell phones provided by Dowa Mining. The cost of energy is minimal and, unlike any other metal recovery system, the separation technique works at temperature and ambient pressure. The main source of energy used is the grinding of electronic waste. The main challenge is to make the film in series. Development engineers master the coating with chelating agents, the next step is the design of a rapid rotation system which can treat tons of electronic waste per hour, instead of kilograms per day. The selective capture technique, such as the trademark premium trademark has defined it, will evolve towards machines which will take the form of newspaper presses.
The first cash flow
The first SEPARATION PRIME income is the design of metal recovery systems on site. Governments are eager to learn how we can reduce the enormous stock of electronic waste and avoid toxic leaching. How to set up a management system where waste flows and costs are covered without continuously increasing the charge for the taxpayer. Consulting services, the evaluation of potential and the establishment of income flows while improving performance, generates the first income for the venture capital company. While everyone knows that the potential value of a ton of computers is $ 15,000 from on -board metals, the key to success is the design of a network of on -site processing units based on multiple Sources of income that transform this costly and traumatic management of electronic waste into a cash generator unit.
The opportunity
The long -term opportunity begins with the installation of separation units on each discharge or deposit of electronic waste. Like Earthstone Inc. to New Mexico has established its processing unit on the Albuquerque burial site, SEPAIRATION PRIMATE can group its treatment system around the same sites, generating additional income and further reducing the load on site. This extends the lifespan of the discharge, reduces the risk of soil contamination and leachate of toxins in groundwater. The cost of land in and around the discharges is low, the resources are delivered to the door with silver and the income of the transformed metal is guaranteed.
The implementation of this innovation will soon make it possible to operate landlocked sites. Although the flow of electronic waste will not decrease, landfill sites have such value that it will soon be worth the excavation thanks to handling on site. The metals cannot be cremated and should be eliminated because the metallic particles suspended in the air are very toxic. Developing countries have the possibility of designing all electronic waste and stimulating the creation of metal treatment facilities such as that proposed by Prime Separations. South African mining companies have an exceptional opportunity to create more jobs and create more value.
If we take into account the reduction of the demand for steel and titanium thanks to the introduction of silk geometry, and if we combine this with the recovery of 99.98% of pure metals, y Including toxic metals, then we can start to see how the blue economy reduces costs and increases income, while creating jobs that are healthy and by constituting share capital.
