Called the little gold: 1 million smart phones can be recovered 34 kilograms of gold-IT information

One shell made of diamond iPhone can help you earn $ 95 million, but if such a cell phone more than you can afford, don't feel discouraged. In fact, every Smartphone has many rare metals, such as gold, silver, copper, Platinum and Palladium. Not only that, but the value of these metals is increasing, because sooner or later, of underground minerals of digging will be our light. Such a thought, your cell phone seems to be much more valuable than you previously thought.

? From mobile phones to computers, Guiyu need to deal with most of the world's electronic waste. About 80% of which came from overseas countries.

? Electronic equipment contains many precious metals and rare earth elements, but most of the material is of high pollution and high toxicity of extraction and recovery of the environment.

Smartphone contains which metal?

Smartphones are like a precious metals and rare earth portable Vault. It is estimated that an average iPhone 0.034 grams of gold in 0.34 grams of silver, 0.015 gram Palladium, and less than 1 per thousand grams of Platinum. It contains 25 grams of aluminum and 15 grams of copper, which, though less valuable, but is equally important.

Also more than that. Smart phones also contain a variety of rare earth elements, yttrium, lanthanum, praseodymium, neodymium, gadolinium, terbium, and so on. They are in the Earth's crust is actually not rare, but extremely difficult to lower the costs of mining and extraction. In addition, cell phones also contain plastics, glass, batteries ... ... And many other "ingredients".

Content of these components are relatively rare. But at present there are more than 2 billion people hold a smart phone, and this figure continues to rise. Not only that, but these elements in mobile phone content than the same weight of ore content is much higher. A ton of gold contained in your iPhone is a ton of gold contained in 300 times, the silver content is 6.5 times in the same quality of silver ore.

Why do we need to pay attention to this issue?

As the existing 2 billion smart phone users on average every 11 months for a new phone, old phone so casually thrown into the drawer, or were simply discarded. Less than 10% old phone for recycling, in which valuable raw materials can be recycled. This is a real gold mine, but we carefully squeeze out. Today, a variety of resources, including oil, are reached the pinnacle of usage, so if you can avoid wasting these precious materials in the phone are consistent with economic interests, and environmental value.

When the Smartphone is thrown away, what will happen to these materials?

Each phone contained too little material, so if you only recycle a mobile phone, it would be worth. But if large-scale recycling, results are good: 1 million smart phones can be recycled about 16 tons of copper, 350 kilograms, 34 kilograms of gold, silver and palladium and 15 kilograms.

Question is, how can we be safe, economical to extract these materials? A lot of electronic waste (including cell phone included) will be exported and dumped in China and other countries, low-income workers and child labour in hazardous chemical reagents, extracted the precious raw material. Guiyu in southeastern China, even as the world's largest e-waste recycling station, had a huge impact on the health of local residents, local soil, River and air is also affected by the mercury, arsenic, chromium, and lead pollution.

Even in the country of origin has been recycling, electronic waste can cause huge problems. For example, Australia still in the use of industrial smelting equipment deal with e-waste, it not only costly, but also great harm on the environment.

Do you have a better solution?

Of course. The ideal situation is that we can slow down the speed of electronic products. But because of the extremely difficult to change consumer habits, we must proceed from the other methods.

Australia materials scientist at the University of new South Wales weina·sahayiwala (Veena Sahajwalla) trying to a small-scale approach to solving this global problem. Sahayiwala thinks we should be established in each community "micro factory" in a safe, clean, efficient manner, extract precious metals from discarded mobile phone, and then burn the remaining part.

Her method does not require human intervention, human exposure to mobile phones fell to lowest internal risks related to hazardous substances. Method using high voltage current cell phone smash, and then use the robotic arm to pick up the precious circuit board, then goes into a small furnace at the rest, under the precise temperature control, extract the rare alloys. Finally then the remaining toxic or unwanted substances safely burned. The space required for the entire process with a container, this may prove to be the ultimate solution for recovery of precious metals from e-waste.

堪称小金矿：一百万部智能手机可回收34千克黄金 - IT资讯

一部外壳由钻石制成的iPhone可以为你赚回9500万美元，但如果这样一部手机超出了你的经济能力的话，也不要感觉灰心沮丧。事实上，每部智能手机里都含有许多珍稀金属，如金、银、铜、铂和钯等。不仅如此，这些金属的价值还在与日俱增，因为迟早有一天，地下的矿藏都会被我们挖光的。这样一想，你的手机似乎比你之前认为的要值钱得多呢。

▲从手机到电脑，贵屿镇需要处理世界上大部分的电子垃圾。其中约80%都来自海外国家。

▲电子设备中含有许多贵金属和稀土元素，但其中的大多数材料都是在高污染、高毒性的环境中进行提取回收的。

智能手机中究竟含有哪些金属？

智能手机犹如一座便携的贵金属及稀土金库。据估计，一台普通的iPhone中含有0.034克黄金，0.34克银，0.015克钯、以及不到千分之一克的铂。它还含有约25克铝和15克铜，这些金属虽然不那么珍贵，但也同样重要。

还不止这些呢。智能手机中还含有各种稀土元素，如钇、镧、铽、钕、钆、镨等。它们在地壳中其实并不罕见，但极难以较低的成本进行开采和提取。此外，手机中还含有塑料、玻璃、电池……等众多“配料”。

这些成分的含量都相对很少。但当前已有20多亿人持有智能手机，这一数字还在不断上涨。不仅如此，这些元素在手机中的含量其实比相同重量的矿石中的含量高得多。一吨iPhone中所含的黄金是一吨金矿中所含黄金的300倍，银的含量也是相同质量的银矿石中的6.5倍。

我们为什么需要关注这一问题？

因为现有的20亿名智能手机使用者平均每11个月就会换一部新手机，旧手机就这么被随随便便扔到了哪个抽屉里，或是被直接丢弃。只有不到10%的旧手机会进行回收，其中珍贵的原料会得到循环利用。这是一座真正的金矿，却被我们随手弃之一旁。如今，包括石油在内的各种资源都达到了使用量的顶峰，因此，如能避免浪费掉手机中这些珍贵的材料，既符合经济利益，又具有环保价值。

当智能手机被丢弃之后，这些材料会怎么样？

每部手机中所含的材料太少，因此如果只对一部手机进行回收，未免有些不值。但若是进行大规模回收，结果就很诱人了：一百万部智能手机可以回收约16吨铜、350千克银、34千克黄金、以及15千克钯。

问题是，我们如何才能安全、经济地提取出这些材料呢？大量的电子垃圾(包括手机在内)会被出口、倾倒在中国等国家，收入微薄的工人和童工再用危险的化学试剂，将其中的珍贵原料提取出来。中国东南的贵屿镇甚至被称为世界上最大的电子垃圾回收站，对当地居民的身体健康造成了巨大影响，当地的土壤、河流和空气也受到了水银、砷、铬、和铅的严重污染。

就算在原产国得到了回收利用，这些电子垃圾同样会造成巨大的问题。例如，澳大利亚仍在利用工业熔炼设备处理电子垃圾，这样做不仅成本高昂，而且对环境也危害巨大。

有更好的解决方案吗？

当然有。最理想的情况是，我们可以减缓电子产品更新换代的速度。但由于消费者习惯极难改变，我们必须从其它方法着手。

澳大利亚新南威尔士大学的材料科学家维娜·萨哈伊瓦拉(Veena Sahajwalla)试图通过一种小规模的处理方法来解决这一全球性问题。萨哈伊瓦拉认为，我们应当在每个社区中建立“微型工厂”，以安全、清洁、高效的方式，把贵金属从废弃手机中提取出来，然后焚烧掉剩下的部分。

她的方法不需要人工参与，将人类接触到手机内部危险物质的风险降到了最低。该方法先利用高压电流将手机击碎，然后用机器手捡出珍贵的电路板，剩下的部分再被送入一台小型熔炉中，在精确的高温控制下，提取出其中的珍稀合金。最后再将剩余的有毒物质或无用物质进行安全焚毁。整个过程所需的空间与一只集装箱差不多，这或许将成为从电子垃圾中回收贵金属的终极解决方案。