How can we save earth's rare elements by properly recycling our electronic devices - check out in this amazing VIDEO from ANTISOLVO
To raise the awareness of the importance of recycling our electronic devices, Jožef Stefan Institute, a partner of ANTISOLVO project (project leader Srečo Davor Škapin), filmed this informative video.
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Your mobile phone, your electronic toothbrush, hair dryer, kitchen mixer or electronic tools in the garage - all need the same thing to operate - a small
motor with neodymium magnets inside.
What we usually don't know is that this
motors contain very precious materials – materials not just precious for
the "consumer" economy, but also materials critical for the future
of sustainable energy. Wind mills, electronic vehicles etc. - they all need
up to hundreds of kilos of these precious compounds to be operating.
That is why the materials in our household
devices are classified under “critical raw materials”
(CRMs).
It is not just the increasing demand
that makes these metals critical, but also the fact, that producing these materials
from scratch comes with high environmental cost, that we can not afford. For example, mining for a
ton of these metals, can produce up to 2000tons of toxic waste.
That is why recycling these rare elements has
been put forward as one of the key strategies to overcome these issues.
It is true that one motor in our household device contains just small amounts of these "rare earth elements", but there
is practically no electronic device without it. So, we can contribute greatly
by properly recycling all of our end-of-life electronic devices. And all it takes
for us is to take them to our local disposal & recycling facility, where
they will be properly disposed, instead of just throwing them in the trash.
Be a part of the necessary change - contribute to sustainability and renewable energy sources by properly recycling your
electronic devices.
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ANTISOLVO ERA-MIN2 project is to take a new
concept, antisolvent precipitation, and apply it to the indirect, chemical
recycling of End-of-Life rare-earth-based permanent magnets that are contained
in both electric vehicles, direct-drive wind turbines and a multitude of
consumer electronics (incl. smart phones and laptops).
The envisioned ANTISOLVO recycling flowsheet intends to selectively separate the rare earths (REEs) from a Nd-Fe-B magnet leach liquor (WP2), which will also contain iron, cobalt and other metals. The latter are recovered in a second step using ion exchange and extraction chromatography (WP3). The required organic antisolvent is recycled and fed back to the antisolvent precipitation unit operation.
Več info o projektu: https://eramin-antisolvo.eu/