INSPIRING SUCCESS STORY

AMTC:

Recovering precious materials from e-waste in greener ways

Key Highlights:

Less toxic chemicals mean less harm to the planet and workers’ health
Recycling plants save at least 20% in chemical disposal cost
13 licences to use AMTC’s safer chemical formulations were issued to 9 firms

Enterprise profile

Set up in 2008, Singapore Polytechnic’s Advanced Materials Technology Centre (AMTC) leverages its solutions and technologies to develop new science and engineering innovations. These are then commercialised through innovation projects, consultancy services, technology licensing, and continuous education training courses.

In 2022, AMTC developed chemical formulations to help plants that recycle electronic waste extract precious metals in a safer and more cost-efficient manner.

Problem statement

In most electronic waste recycling plants today, the chemicals that dissolve and extract raw materials involve the use of strong acids and highly toxic chemicals like cyanide. This puts employees at these plants at high risk as they are constantly exposed to hazardous chemicals. They are also required to wear full-face masks, which creates a working environment that is both dangerous and uncomfortable.

The current industrial chemicals are also less efficient. For example, they extract gold together with nickel copper, which requires the extracted material to be reprocessed in order to separate the gold from the alloy. This is a two-step process that the AMTC sought to eliminate.

Also, their high levels of toxicity mean the chemicals themselves must be processed before they can be disposed of. This is an added cost to the recycling plants, not to mention harmful to the environment.

Impact Achieved

Dr Lim Zheng Bang, AMTC’s Manager, led a team to develop three different solutions tailored to dissolve specific precious metals, namely gold, silver, and palladium. These highly efficient solutions can extract more than 90 per cent of the precious metals in just one round of processing, which cuts recycling time and cost. They are also much safer.

“The solutions we developed have a reduced amount of cyanide of up to 40 times. Without other strong acids, the toxicity of the solutions is much lower, and employees are not required to wear face masks,” said Dr Lim.

The new solutions also eliminate the need for processing toxic chemicals for disposal, which saves e-waste plants up to 20 per cent in disposal costs.

Since the project was completed in March 2022, AMTC has issued 13 licences to nine e-waste plants in Singapore to use its safer chemicals.

The project also clinched the Ministry of Education’s (MOE) Innergy Award Gold 2022 and the MOE Minister's Innovation Award 2023 – a testament to their success and impact.

_{Dr Lim Zheng Bang, Manager at SP-AMTC}

The solutions we developed have a reduced amount of cyanide of up to 40 times. Without other strong acids, the toxicity of the solutions is much lower, and employees are not required to wear face masks.

_{E-waste, like the printed circuit boards of an old mobile phone, is dipped into the liquid chemical developed by AMTC to extract gold.}

_{Dr Lim Zheng Bang, AMTC’s Manager, demonstrating the analysis of gold extraction liquid developed by him and his team.}

SP-MrLimZhenBang-4

_{Samples of raw material extracted by the chemicals developed at AMTC}

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