There are stats that in 1t of recycled smartphones is around 200g of Gold, while in mining 1t contains around 2-3% of Gold.
Does this match somehow?
There are stats that in 1t of recycled smartphones is around 200g of Gold, while in mining 1t contains around 2-3% of Gold.
Does this match somehow?
2-3% of 1 ton is 40-60 pounds of gold, and that's using the smaller, non-metric tons. 200g is about half a pound, so you'd be looking at 80x more gold per ton from traditional mining on the low end
And the gold in electronics is usually in microscopically thin layers, so it only makes commercial sense to extract it when other sources become more expensive... and at that point, doing an ecological extraction won't be a top priority.
Really, the reduce and reuse parts are our best bet, because recycling only delays the inevitable, unless some groundbreaking technological change achieves 100% electronics recycling.
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/6/2509
"Indeed, a natural ore mine can produce 5 g of gold (Au) per ton of ore, while 200–250 g Au can be recovered from the same mass of computer boards (300–350 g Au/t for mobile phones) [6]."
I think the best way to do this would be to grind it all up and then melt the material and distill it into different components.
Manually it's indeed not recoverable like that.
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/6/2509
"Indeed, a natural ore mine can produce 5 g of gold (Au) per ton of ore, while 200–250 g Au can be recovered from the same mass of computer boards (300–350 g Au/t for mobile phones) [6]."
> while in mining 1t contains around 2-3% of Gold
Where in the world would that be true? That would be 800 - 1000 ounces per ton! As far as I know the best pay dirt produces a handful of ounces per ton, or 0.01%.
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/6/2509
"Indeed, a natural ore mine can produce 5 g of gold (Au) per ton of ore, while 200–250 g Au can be recovered from the same mass of computer boards (300–350 g Au/t for mobile phones) [6]."