LONDON, Oct 20 (Reuters) - Britain's Royal Mint said on
Wednesday it planned to build a plant in Wales that could
reclaim hundreds of kilograms of gold and other precious metals
from electronic waste such as mobile phones and laptops.
Gold and silver are highly conductive and small quantities
are embedded in circuit boards and other hardware, along with
other precious metals.
Most of this material is never recovered, with discarded
electronics often dumped in landfill or incinerated.
The more than 1,100-year old mint said it had partnered with
a Canadian start-up called Excir which has developed chemical
solutions to extract the metals from the circuit boards.
"It's able to selectively pull out precious metals with a
high degree of purity," said Sean Millard, the mint's chief
growth officer.
He said the mint was currently using the process at small
scale while designing a plant that "would look to process
hundreds of tonnes of e-waste per annum, generating hundreds of
kilograms of precious metals".
The plant should be up and running "within the next couple
of years", he said, declining to say how much it would cost.
A kilogram of gold is worth around $55,000 at current
prices.
(Reporting by Peter Hobson; Editing by Jan Harvey)