The core objective of precious metal recycling is to efficiently and environmentally extract gold, silver, platinum group metals (platinum, palladium, rhodium, ruthenium, iridium, etc.) and other high-value resources from precious metal-containing wastes.DONGSHENG recovers precious metal catalyst, titanium anodes, MMO anodes, DSA anodes. nickel cathodes, PCBs all contain precious metals that can be recovered or depend on precious metals to fulfill their functions, and therefore belong to the key recycling targets, nickel cathodes, PCB all contain precious metals that can be recovered or rely on precious metals to realize their functions, so they belong to the key recycling objects:
Composition and Usage: Industrial precious metal catalysts (e.g., automobile exhaust purification, chemical synthesis catalysts) usually contain platinum group metals (PGMs) such as platinum, palladium, and rhodium. For example, automotive catalytic converters consume 65% of the world's palladium, 45% of the world's platinum and 84% of the world's rhodium.
The need for recycling: Recycling can alleviate the shortage of precious metals, which have limited natural reserves and high prices (e.g. rhodium is three times more expensive than gold).
Waste catalysts still contain high concentrations of precious metals (e.g. platinum group metals up to 0.5-2%), far exceeding the grade of virgin ore.
Traditional thermal/wet recycling has high energy consumption or strong pollution problems, and green alternative technologies (e.g. photocatalytic dissolution) are urgently needed.
Titanium anode: Titanium substrate is very valuable for recycling.
MMO/DSA anode: advanced type of titanium anode, used in electrolysis and electroplating industry, with high catalytic activity and corrosion resistance.
Nickel cathode: It may adsorb or reduce the precious metal ions (e.g. gold, silver) in the solution during the electrodeposition process, and become an enriched carrier of precious metals.
Recycling value: after electrode failure, high temperature incineration recovery, purity can reach more than 99%.
Printed circuit board is the core component of e-waste, containing a variety of precious metals:
Gold: used for contacts, connectors (1 ton of cell phone circuit boards contain about 0.45 kg of gold, equivalent to the gold content of 1 ton of gold ore).
Silver/Palladium: used for solder joints, capacitors (the global electronics industry consumes 12,800 tons of silver and 40 tons of palladium annually).
Value and technology of printed circuit board recycling
Economics: 1 ton of randomly collected electronic boards contains over $15,000 worth of gold.
Environmental pressure: Global e-waste reaches 53.6 million tons in 2019, of which heavy metals (lead, mercury) and precious metals will pollute the environment if improperly handled.
Technological innovation: traditional cyanide / aqua regia method is highly polluting, green technologies such as photocatalytic method can realize selective recovery (99% efficiency and ≥98% purity).
Recovery of all the above materials relies on efficient separation technologies to address the following challenges:
Selective dissolution: precious metals often coexist with base metals such as copper and iron, and impurity interference needs to be avoided (e.g., photocatalytic methods can selectively oxidize precious metals).
Environmentally friendly: replacing highly toxic reagents such as cyanide/royal water
Precious metal catalyst, Titanium/MMO/DSA anodes, Nickel cathodes, PCB are all included in the recycling system because they contain or are enriched with titanium, nickel, gold, silver, platinum, palladium, rhodium, ruthenium, iridium and other precious metals. The core logic is:
1. Scarcity of resources: precious metal deposits are limited, and the grade in waste is much higher than that in ore;
2. Economic efficiency: Recycling costs are lower than mining and energy-intensive smelting is avoided;
3. environmental sustainability: green recycling technologies (e.g. photocatalytic methods) can replace traditional polluting processes and promote a circular economy. With the surge in production of e-waste and spent catalysts (annual growth rate of 3-5%), efficient recycling of these materials has become a key path to sustainable resource utilization.
Language
