A research team comprising chemists, engineers, and physicists from Flinders University in Australia has developed a new method for extracting gold from ore and e-waste using safer chemicals. According to TechXplore, this technique replaces the deadly cyanide used for leaching gold from the ore with trichloroisocyanuric acid (TCCA) — a cheap and safer compound often used for treating water and disinfection. They then created a new sulfur polymer that would only bind with the gold dissolved in the TCCA. The polymer is then heated or chemically broken down, causing it to release gold with a purity of more than 99%.
Aside from being safer to both humans and the environment, the sulfur polymer is highly recyclable, allowing it to be reused in future processes. This means that you don’t have to continually purchase new stocks of the sulfur polymer, thereby reducing both cost and resource consumption. This process also offers a safer alternative to mercury, which is often used in artisanal and small-scale gold mining and remains the largest source of mercury pollution.
This technique goes beyond gold mining — it’s also a safer, more efficient way of recovering gold from e-waste, as it does not use dangerous chemicals, doesn’t use a lot of electricity, and returns gold at a much higher purity. The team behind this technique, including Dr. Max Mann, Dr. Thomas Nicholls, Dr. Harshal Patel, and Dr. Lynn Lisboa, has tested the process on piles of old electronics and lab waste, and they’ve successfully recovered pure gold from those materials.
“We dived into a mound of e-waste and climbed out with a block of gold! I hope this research inspires impactful solutions to pressing global challenges,” says. Dr. Patel. Dr. Lisboa added, “With the ever-growing technological and societal demand for gold, it is increasingly important to develop safe and versatile methods to purify gold from varying sources.”
Gold is more than just a precious mineral used for wealth and jewelry — it’s also a crucial part of our technology-driven world and is used in making chips. However, it’s also a finite resource so that we might run out of it one day. By making gold recycling safer and more accessible, we will encourage the reuse of materials that would otherwise be discarded as waste products.
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