How to extract gold card with gold recycling circuit.
Urban miners look for precious metals in cell phones.
A worker pours molten gold, recycled from components of mobile phones and other electronic items discarded in a mold at Dowa Holdings Co Eco-System Recycling Co, a recycling plant, in Honjo, north of Tokyo March 28, 2008 Thinking of throwing your old cell phone no mistake Maybe you are me first for gold, silver, copper and a host of other metals embedded in the electronics - many enjoying near-record prices.
Honjo, Japan Thinking of throwing your old cell phone no mistake Maybe you are me first for gold, silver, copper and a host of other metals embedded in the electronics - many of which benefit from near-record prices.
It's called urban mining, digging through the scrap metal in old electronic products in search of such pearls as iridium and gold, and it is a growth industry around the world as metal prices rise sharply.
The materials recovered are reused in new electronics parts and the gold and other precious metals are melted down and sold as ingots to jewelers and investors as well as back to manufacturers who use gold in the circuit boards printed mobile phones because gold still makes electricity better than copper.
It can be precious or minor metals, we want to recycle whatever we can, said Tadahiko Sekigawa, president of Eco-System Recycling Co which is owned by Dowa Holdings Co Ltd.
A ton of ore from a gold mine produced 5 grams 0 18 ounce on average, whereas a tonne of mobile phones discarded can produce 150 grams 5 3 ounces or more, according to a study conducted by Yokohama metal Co Ltd, another recycling firm.
The same volume of mobile phones discarded also contains about 100 kg 220 lb of copper and 3 kg 6 6 lbs silver, among other metals.
Recycling has gained in importance as metals prices hit record highs of gold is trading at about 890 per ounce, after hitting a high of 1,030 in March 80.
Copper and tin are also around record highs and silver prices are well above long-term averages.
the recycling of electronics makes sense for Japan which has few natural resources to feed its electronics industry billions of dollars, but does have tens of millions of old cell phones and other electronic gadgets obsolete largest public thrown away each year .
For some it's just a mountain of garbage, but for others it's a gold mine, said Nozomu Yamanaka, manager of the recycling factory Eco-systems where cell phones mounds of discarded and other electronics gadgets are taken apart for their metal value.
At the factory in Honjo, 80 km 50 miles southwest of Tokyo, 34 years old Arai Susumu harvest some of that premium.
A gold ribbon molten stream into a mold where it crackles and spits fire for a few minutes before solidifying into a dull yellow slab, on its way to becoming a 3 kg 6 6 lbs of gold, a value of about 90 000 at current prices.
Wearing plastic goggles to protect his eyes while he works, Arai said he was stunned when he started working there two years ago.
Now I find fun being able to recover not just gold, but all sorts of metals, he said.
The scrap electronics and other industrial waste is first sorted and dismantled by hand is then immersed in chemicals to dissolve unwanted materials and the remaining metal is refined.
Eco-System, established 20 years ago near Tokyo, typically produces about 200-300 kg 440-660 lb of gold bars a month with a purity of 99 to 99 percent, a value of about 5 8 to 9 million 8 million.
It s the same output as a small gold mine.
Eco-System also recovers metals from old memory chips, cables and even black ink containing silver and palladium.
But despite the growing interest in the environment and recycling, the industry struggles to get enough old mobile phones to feed its recycling plants.
128 million Japanese people use their cell phones for an average of two years and eight months.
That's a lot of cell phone phones discarded every year, but only 10 to 20 percent are recycled as people often opt to store them in their cupboards due to concerns about personal data on their phones, said Yoshinori Yajima, a director at Japan's Ministry of Economy, trade and Industry.
Just 558 tonnes of old phones were collected for recycling in the year to March 2007, down a third from three years earlier, industry figures show.
As metals prices rise, the Japanese industry faces growing competition for scrap, which is pushing up prices.
We are seeing more competition from Chinese firms, and naturally the goods go where the money is, Dowa Takashi Morise said.
In response, Japanese firms are importing used circuit boards from Singapore and Indonesia, as they also contain valuable minor metals that Japan is particularly eager to recover.
These minor metals such as indium, a vital component in the production of flat panel TVs and computer screens, antimony and bismuth are indispensable for producing many high-tech products.
However, they are often not easy to acquire as China has tightened export controls, making it harder for Japanese manufacturers to buy these metals.
Our wish is to be able to help Japanese manufacturers that need these metals, the president Eco-System Sekigawa said.
Urban miners look for precious metals in cell phones Reuters, urban, juvenile, look, precious.