In a UK first two British companies have partnered to recycle metals from the world’s fastest growing waste stream, electronic waste, using a new clean technology.
The first multi-million pound recycling plant is due to be live in the North East by 2024 and will have the capacity to recycle 5,000 tonnes per annum of printed circuit boards and other high value WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) at a fraction of the cost of conventional smelting operations.
E-waste generates £43bn of metal-rich waste annually and new technology being introduced as a result of the new partnership will remove the need for the highly wasteful and environmentally damaging conventional smelting processes.
Peter Moody, managing director of one of the firms involved, Gateshead-based recycling and waste management business GAP said: “We are constantly on the look out for new ways to innovate our processes and will continue to invest in the future to protect the environment whilst at the same time maintain our commercial advantage.
“I’m delighted that we can lead the way with Descycle disrupting the market, especially as the critical metals in e-waste circuit boards are notoriously difficult to recycle, requiring large smelting facilities. The prospect of being able to do this affordably onsite in the UK using a potentially zero carbon process is tremendously exciting and will be a globally significant disruption for the recycling industry.
“By identifying a new clean way to separate and extract the precious and critical metals from e-waste we are hoping to solve a problem that has been generating huge amounts of inefficiency and pollution for many years.”
The partnership between GAP Group (NE) Limited, a recycling and waste management business and Descycle, a clean technology company, will challenge the status quo in the energy and carbon intensive metal recycling industry by using a new environmentally friendly and efficient process based on a class of chemistry invented in the UK at the University of Leicester known as Deep Eutectic Solvents (DES).
Metals react differently in DES than in water-based systems, the unique properties in DES dissolve the target metals in solution without the need for toxic chemicals or high temperatures, allowing for simple metal recovery methods. The environmentally safe DES solution can itself be recycled and used over and over again.
Dr Leo Howden, Descycle managing director said: “We are really excited at the prospect of what can be achieved with our partnership with GAP. They have demonstrated that they really have the vision and the track record to provide an excellent platform to support Descycle in delivering this pioneering technology.
“Changing the whole dynamic of the e-waste market is a bold statement but one both GAP and Descycle can achieve with use of this revolutionary technology that has the potential to deliver the truly green solution governments have been calling for, creating a circular economy (where everything is reused for as long as possible) with clean technology.”
GAP and Descycle have signed Joint Venture heads of terms to deliver this novel process in the UK to recycle e-waste and critical metals required for low carbon technologies such as electric vehicle batteries.
Dr Rob Harris, Descycle chief technology officer said: “We founded Descycle when we saw the gigantic impact DES could have on the metals industry. DES is a platform chemistry which cannot only replace toxic chemicals, such as cyanide, but also by-pass the use of pollutive smelters. The process has the potential to be zero carbon and is requires far less financial investment. Attributes that will be game changing for the recycling industries.”
![Shortage of raw materials may have impact on supply chain The Ukraine-Russia conflict is expected to further impact the already stressed global semiconductor supply as raw material exported from the two countries such as neon gas, chemical C4F6 and palladium are critical for semiconductor manufacturing. This has also put the Indian electronics and automobile manufacturing industry in a wait-and-watch mode. “The [global] market is apprehensive that the Ukraine crisis will result in shortages of key raw materials, eventually affecting the semiconductor supply chain… The result and the extent of this non-economic event are unpredictable. But it has already started affecting the supply chain,” Brady Wang, semiconductor analyst at Counterpoint Research, said. The two countries also export other key metals such as nickel, platinum, rhodium and titanium. Mr. Wang pointed out that neon prices had witnessed a tenfold increase during the 2014 Crimean crisis in Ukraine even as the semiconductor industry cut the total usage of the gas by 20% to 40% after adjusting software logic and optimising the purging process of the gas filling procedure. “Therefore, the supply chain will be impacted if the gas manufacturing facilities are destroyed during the current war. If not, we may still see rising prices, though the impact on production will remain manageable,” he said. Noting that two of Ukraine’s leading suppliers of semiconductor-grade neon have halted their operations, Prabhu Ram, head of Industry Intelligence Group at CyberMedia Research, said that in an interconnected world, India would also face some direct or indirect impact in its electronics manufacturing. “The unavailability of crucial upstream raw materials can have a cascading impact through the supply chain, and impacting especially those manufac- turers in Asia, who are reliant on Ukraine,” he said. While the consumer appliances sector in India is more likely to be impacted by the increase in prices of other raw materials such as steel, semiconductor shortage is expected to put pressure on the supply of smartphones, laptops and automobiles. Earlier this month, the Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations had revised downwards its outlook for the already struggling Indian automobile sector from ‘neutral’ to ‘negative’ amid concerns over the impact of the Ukraine conflict on the automobile supply chain. With Omicron passing away without much impact and supplies showing signs of recovery, it looked as if the Indian auto industry was at the cusp of recovery until Russia invaded Ukraine. This will once again have ripple effects on the global automobile supply chain,” the industry body had said. According to Counterpoint Research, Ukraine and Russia hold reserves of some rare elements required in the production of semiconductors, vehicle batteries and other related components. Ukraine caters to almost 70% of the world’s neon demand and the neon gas is a by-product of Russian steel plants, which is then filtered and supplied by Ukrainian companies. “...The larger manufacturers of microchips and batteries hold some material in reserve, but these are likely to be quickly depleted if the crisis stretches on for months. This will lead to increased prices of the respective components. With the financial sanctions imposed on Russia, the prices of these elements are likely to increase by at least 20%, which will make the production of electric vehicles more costly.” For the consumer appliances industry, semiconductors do not play a major role, and the industry does not foresee any direct short term impact. “We need to wait and watch. With the Ukraine-Russia conflict… already prices of steel have increased… semiconductors are not going to hit us directly right now, but we could see price increases because of other raw material costs going up, crude prices going up... automatically shipping costs will go up. The rupee has devalued against the dollar, so all this put together could see a further increase in prices,” Eric Braganza, president, Consumer Electronics and Appliances Manufacturers Association (CEAMA), said. He added that since the main business season for the consumer appliance sector was now beginning, most large manufacturers would have already made arrangements for production in March and April. “In the short term I don’t see any major price increase happening, but if the situation persists then yes, by May-June, depending on the stock inventories of each individual company, we could start seeing a price increase in the industry.” In the past 18 months, the consumer appliance/durable sector has seen an increase of up to 15% in prices.](https://milhostech.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Ukraine-conflict-gives-jitters-to-auto-electronics-sectors-390x220.jpg)
