With over 300 tonnes of gold used in electronics each year, end-of-life electronic equipment offers an important recycling potential for the secondary supply of gold. With gold concentrations reaching 300-350 g/t for mobile phone handsets and 200-250 g/t for computer circuit boards, this “urban mine” is significantly richer than what is available in primary ores.However, the “mineralogy” in scrap products is much different than in the conventional ores in a gold mine: Up to 60 different elements are closely interlinked in complex assemblies and sub-assemblies, and this requires specialised metallurgical processes with extensive offgas treatment to recover gold and a wide range of other metals cost effectively and in an environmentally sound way. Moreover, the logistics to “excavate” and “haul” the scrap products to the concentrator and further to the smelter are much more challenging than in the primary supply chain. Currently, only a small portion of old products is collected and directed into state-of-the art recycling chains. Significant improvements are needed here to fully utilise this secondary metal resource.The importance of the gold content of scrap electronics to the economics of recovery of gold and many other valuable metals is not always appreciated and this impacts on the “design for recycling” approach in selecting materials for new products, particularly in the European Union where the WEEE Directive aims to provide a closed loop economy. With a lower carbon footprint than primary-mined gold, recycled gold represents an important “green” source. The challenges faced in recycling electronic scrap to achieve a closed loop economy are discussed.

中文翻译：

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从电子产品中回收黄金：通过“回收设计”实现经济高效的使用

每年有超过 300 吨黄金用于电子产品，报废电子设备为黄金的二次供应提供了重要的回收潜力。手机的黄金浓度达到 300-350 克/吨，电脑电路板的黄金浓度达到 200-250 克/吨，这个“城市矿山”比原矿中的金含量要丰富得多。 然而，废料中的“矿物学”产品与金矿中的常规矿石大不相同：多达 60 种不同的元素在复杂的组件和子组件中紧密相连，这需要专门的冶金工艺和广泛的废气处理来回收金和各种其他金属以经济高效且环保的方式。而且，将废料“挖掘”和“拖运”到选矿厂和冶炼厂的物流比初级供应链更具挑战性。目前，只有一小部分旧产品被收集并导入最先进的回收链。这里需要进行重大改进以充分利用这种二次金属资源。 废电子产品的含金量对回收黄金和许多其他有价金属的经济性的重要性并不总是得到重视，这对“回收设计”方法产生了影响。为新产品选择材料，特别是在欧盟，WEEE 指令旨在提供闭环经济。与原生开采黄金相比，回收黄金的碳足迹更低，是一种重要的“绿色”来源。