The Hindu 13.04.2013
E-waste, an urban mining for IMMT scientists
Discarded electronic goods may emerge as one of the
biggest challenges to environment now. But scientists at Institute of
Minerals and Materials Technology (IMMT) here treat the e-waste as a
resource.
IMMT scientists managed a breakthrough in
extracting metals such as copper, silver, nickel, palladium and gold
from the e-waste, which earned a patent on the innovation. The premiere
laboratory of IMMT under the aegis of Council of Scientific and
Industrial Research has developed a thermal plasma process to treat the
e-waste to recover the metal values as well as treat the associated
toxic gases.
“Waste generated in huge volume in urban
centres is like urban mining for us. If the waste is handled with care,
it would offer a lot to the society. The process of extracting valuable
metals from e-waste developed by our scientists has proved this,” said
B. K. Mishra, Director of IMMT, addressing a press conference here on
Friday.
Increased use of electronic equipment in recent times has compounded the problem of piling electronic waste (e-waste).
While
about 20-50 million tonnes of e-waste is generated every year, only 10
per cent of this is being recycled. The IMMT process would not only
extract metals from e-waste but also take care of the environmental
contamination.
Much of the credit for innovation goes
to P. S. Mukherjee, Chief Scientist of Advanced Material Technology
Department of IMMT. The research started with a modest beginning. A
Chennai-based private firm had provided a meagre amount of Rs. 6 lakh to
carry out research.
“Many e-waste materials contain
valuable metals like gold and silver. Our effort is to how to extract
those materials. What developed countries do is to send all their
electronic goods to a facility and get the metals back and then separate
individual metals. Now what we are trying to do is to extract
individual metals from e-waste,” said Dr. Mukherjee.