Rockwell Automation Inc, the world’s largest company dedicated to ‘industrial automation and digital transformation’, is working with the
Royal Mint to design, build, and commission a facility to safely recover valuable metals from electronic products. The Royal Mint announced its new factory earlier this year.
When fully operational in 2023, the 3,500m
2 facility (to be built in South Wales) is expected to process up to 90 tonnes of UK-sourced circuit boards a week. Waste electrical equipment (along with electronics and collectively known as e-waste) is one of the fastest-growing waste streams in the UK and the world, with less than 20% currently recycled worldwide.
The UK is said to be throwing away over 300,000 tonnes of electrical items each year and hoarding another 527 million items. More than 95 tonnes of precious metals — including gold, silver, and palladium worth some £857 million — could be recycled from unwanted electricals each year. The Royal Mint will use patented chemistry to recover more than 99 % of the gold and other materials from electronic waste contained within the circuit boards of discarded laptops and mobile phones.
Building on a 15-year relationship with the Royal Mint, Rockwell Automation’s Lifecycle Services team is delivering a multi-million-pound turnkey process design and PlantPAx distributed control system to help reduce the environmental impact of e-waste management in the UK. In the process, the circuit boards are fed via a conveyor system into a reactor and the resulting sludge then undergoes separation, sorting, and filtering to deliver the reclaimed metals.
Phil Hadfield, Rockwell Automation’s UK managing director, said: “The wealth of knowledge and capability that Rockwell Automation has allows us to ensure that this facility is as efficient, viable and user-friendly as possible.
“We are proud to continue our working relationship with the Royal Mint to create a new source of high-quality precious metals for the business and help with the global challenge of electrical waste. The planned recovery of precious metals and other materials will help to preserve natural resources, reduce the environmental impact of smelting UK’s e-waste and foster new skills and employment in South Wales.”