Precious metals from PCs, a new ENEA-patented technology to exploit electronic circuit boards

Further steps ahead in recycling precious materials from electronic circuit boards thanks to a new ENEA invention.

It is a patent registered in the last few weeks (patent application RM2015A000064 of 12 February, 2015), closely related to a previous patent (p. a. RM2013A000549)  on the recycling of materials such as gold, silver, copper, etc., through a particular chemical process (for which an internationalization application has been presented: PCTIB2014065131).

Based on this new patent, a novel prototype is under development, funded by the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research, which is to integrate the demonstration plant ROMEO (RecyclingOf MEtals by hydrOmetallurgy) being developed by the Technical Unit for Environmental Technologies at the ENEA Casaccia Research Centre.

The prototype comprises, in addition to an innovative solid/liquid separation system, a reactor, a charged system and a geometry agitation system specifically studied for treating up to 150 kg of electronic circuit boards per day.

This technology, recently presented in China under the CIGEX (China-Italy Green Exchange 2015) project, has also been the object of an end-course project of the Executive Master MBA of the Bologna Business School. “Electronic circuit boards are a value and the relevant business has potentially global dimensions”: this is the motivation by which ‘Urban Mining’, a work made in collaboration with a group of Master students and ENEA, was awarded a prize last 28th March, within the framework of the Master’s end-course projects. Fabrizio Fuschillo, Francesco Maione, Alessandro Severi, Roberto Lenzotti, Michele Perri, and Giulio Fregni asked ENEA to work out a business plan together in order to evaluate the feasibility of investing in the WEEE (Waste Electrical & Electronic Equipment) sector as a sustainable growth opportunity. “The aspiring entrepreneurs have developed a financial strategy and put forward a proposal for an enterprise dedicated to the management of  the circuit-board metal recycling system – says Danilo Fontana, researcher of the Production Systems Eco-Innovation Laboratory of the ENEA Technical Unit for Environmental Technologies - Companies are being increasingly impressed with this system and several entrepreneurs attending the award ceremony have already expressed their interest in financing a start-up of this kind”.

For more information please contact:

Danilo Fontana, Production Systems Ecoinnovation Laboratory, Technical Unit for Environmental Technologies,  Casaccia Research Centre, danilo.fontana@enea.it