Page 73 from: Recycling International November/December issue | 2022
IN THE LABORATORY
73recyclinginternational.com | November/December | 2022
Material
shortage sparks
modular e-scrap
innovation
US researchers have found a novel way to recov-
er minerals from electronic scrap, offering the
possibility of making products to benefit national
security.
The US manufacturing industry current-
ly relies on other countries, notably
China, to provide the building blocks
of modern-day electronics. The equip-
ment used by the military and the
Department of Defense (DoD) is no
exception but the White House recent-
ly identified resource dependency as
the main reason for ‘critical shortage’
in its semiconductor supply chain.
Owing to volatile market conditions,
the DoD has shown a marked interest
recently in readily available e-scrap
such as LEDs and microelectronic cir-
cuits. An important part of this is the
R&D work carried out by West Virginia
University, which has received funding
of more than US$ 250 000 (EUR 252
000) from the government’s Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency.
FLEXIBLE LOCATION
Leading the work are mechanical and
aerospace engineering experts
Professor Edward Sabolsky and assis-
tant Professor Terence Musho. The lat-
ter is using computational thermody-
namics to simulate the mineral recov-
ery process while Sabolsky is validating
the simulations to prove the results
hold up in the real world.
They aim to extract seven elements
from discarded electronics, particularly
gallium, indium and tantalum. What
sets their approach apart from current
e-scrap solutions is ‘the ability to
achieve very high temperatures very
rapidly’, without using hazardous
chemicals, to yield a modular recycling
technology.
Because the equipment is relatively
small in size, it can be easily disman-
tled and moved to a different location
for testing. ‘That means the DoD can
transport this technology to the point
of disposal,’ Musho says. ‘An interest-
ing application would be deploying our
solution on US Navy ships. They could
move this equipment around to differ-
ent ports for waste recycling across the
country.’
Another, more ‘far out’ idea is applying
the method to space debris. ‘This type
of material is gaining attention,’ Musho
points out. ‘Imagine if you could col-
lect junk satellites, recycle the waste at
space stations and bring the raw mate-
rials back to earth.’
LOCAL EMPOWERMENT
Sabolsky is confident the project will
deliver answers because he has com-
pleted a successful study on critical
elements present in coal fly ash. ‘We’re
taking that knowledge and improving
on it to apply
to e-waste,’
he explains.
During the first phase of the nine-
month project, the researchers will try
to leach out the targeted minerals.
After that, they’ll refine the approach
to ‘hit tighter purity standards’.
Eventually, they plan to scale up to
pilot plant quantities of material and
look for industry partners to help com-
mercialise the idea.
The West Virginia team envisions their
work could make a big difference on a
local scale, too. ‘You could have a
point-of-disposal e-waste recycler in
each community. That way, cities or
municipalities could recycle their own
electronics, get the raw materials out
and sell those materials back to manu-
facturers.’
The academics conclude: ‘We have an
abundance of critical materials currently
sitting in our landfills. It’s just a matter of
determining the best method to recover
these elements. The technology we’re
developing provides a supply chain
solution not only for DoD electronics
but also consumer electronics.’
For more information, contact
Edward Sabolsky:
[email protected]
Share your innovative recycling
projects with us:
[email protected]
A U T H O R Kirstin Linnenkoper
RESEARCH
PIONEER __
_________
SUPPORT FR
OM
e-scrap meta
ls
Professor Edw
ard Sabolsky
West Virginia
University
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