This article from Science Daily produced by Rice University
The flash Joule heating method introduced last year to produce graphene from carbon sources like waste food and plastic has been adapted to recover rhodium, palladium, gold and silver for reuse.
A report in Nature Communications by the Rice lab of chemist James Tour also shows highly toxic heavy metals including chromium, arsenic, cadmium, mercury and lead are removed from the flashed materials, leaving a byproduct with minimal metal content.
Instantly heating the waste to 3,400 Kelvin (5,660 degrees Fahrenheit) with a jolt of electricity vaporizes the precious metals, and the gases are vented away for separation, storage or disposal. Tour said that with more than 40 million tons of e-waste produced globally every year, there is plenty of potential for “urban mining.”
Please visit https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/10/211004140300.htm to read the full article.
