The Royal Mint stated that it anticipated using the recovered gold in the future for its commemorative coins as well as other business endeavours.
A “pioneering” factory that will extract gold from electronic waste has been introduced by the Royal Mint, providing a more sustainable supply of the precious metal for the coin maker’s high-end jewellery line.
Since March 2022, a South Wales factory has been under construction with the aim of extracting gold from up to 4,000 tonnes of circuit boards per year that are acquired from gadgets such as phones, laptops, and TVs in the UK.
For its 886 jewellery line, the Royal Mint, which has been making coins for more than a century, has stated that the procedure might yield hundreds of kg of gold yearly. This company was founded in 2022 and offers luxury rings, necklaces, and earrings both online and at its Burlington Arcade boutique in Mayfair, central London.
The Royal Mint will process the circuit boards in a sophisticated equipment that separates the components and metals in order to extract the gold in two stages. The gold-containing pieces will thereafter be delivered to the manufacturer in South Wales.
To recover the gold, the Llantrisant factory will employ a patented novel chemistry developed by the Canadian clean technology company Excir. The gold-containing circuitry is cleaned in four minutes using a unique acid mixture using a spinning drum akin to one found in a washing machine. In contrast, other methods of extracting gold typically demand higher temperatures over longer periods of time and consume more energy.
With the ability to treat up to 4,000 tonnes of PCBs from e-waste annually, the facility represents the first time Excir’s technology has been scaled from laboratory settings to an industries level.
The 7.5g gold rings in the 886 series weigh around the same as a £1 coin, therefore producing one is expected to require processing 600 mobile phones.
The opening of this facility tackles the increasing environmental threat that e-waste poses. The production of electronic garbage is rising globally at a rate of 2.6 million tons per year, according to the UN Global E-waste Monitor. By 2022, it will have reached a record 62 million tonnes, an 82% increase since 2010.
By making sure that priceless, limited resources are retrieved, and other materials are suitably processed for further handling, the Royal Mint’s facility seeks to address this problem.
The Royal Mint stated that it anticipated using the recovered gold in the future for its commemorative coins as well as other business endeavours.
The Royal Mint is also continuously working to diversify its business as cash use keeps going down, and the new plant is a part of that endeavour. The UK Treasury owns 100% of the company, and it annually distributes a dividend to the government while reinvesting its leftover profits back into the company.
The CEO, Anne Jessopp, stated, “The Royal Mint is transforming for the future, and the opening of our precious metals recovery factory marks a pivotal step in our journey.”
In an effort to support the creation of the first International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standard for recycled gold, the Royal Mint has been collaborating with significant industry associations. Clarity is what this project seeks to give to stakeholders, the industry, and end users. The Royal Mint has been compelled to innovate and diversify due to a persistent global reduction in the use of currency. Its Overseas Currency division was shut down earlier this year, and all 230 employees were offered positions in newly formed and growing business units, such as the Precious Metals Recovery plant, which is currently operational.