The Royal Mint of England has started extracting gold from old electronic circuit boards, turning it into exquisite jewelry using a chemical process.
The Royal Mint of England, an institution with more than a thousand years of coinage, has found a new way to stay relevant in the cashless era. They drew attention to the problem of e-waste, as the UK ranks second in the world in terms of e-waste production per capita.
According to the UN, 2022 was a record year for e-waste, with 62 million tons of discarded devices. It is predicted that by 2030 this figure will increase by 32%, reaching 82 million tons annually.
To address this problem, the Royal Mint has opened a 3,700-square-meter plant in South Wales. It recycles 4,000 tons of printed circuit boards from electronic devices every year.
The plant uses the technology of the Canadian company Excir. The boards are disassembled and immersed in an environmentally friendly chemical that extracts gold at room temperature. The process allows for the extraction of over 99% of gold from e-waste in a matter of seconds.
The Royal Mint turns the recovered gold into a collection of jewelry called 886. The collection includes two pendants, a bracelet and a signet ring, ranging in price from $1937 to $3805.
Anna Jessop, Chief Executive of the Royal Mint, emphasizes the importance of this project:
«We not only preserve precious metals for future generations, but also create new jobs and opportunities for retraining our employees».
To recap, scientists from the University of Washington invented new printed circuit boards, which could significantly reduce the amount of e-waste that ends up in landfills. These boards are partially turned into jelly, which is easy to recycle.
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