Chemical Engineering July 2018 - 15

Hereaus Precious Metals
metals has become extremely complex.
But today we have a state-ofthe-art
facility and a world-class team
of talented employees at Wartburg to
meet our customers' recycling challenges, "
said Andre Christl, president
of Heraeus Precious Metals, during
the ribbon-cutting ceremony.
The 358-year-old company operates
a global network of trading offices,
processing facilities and recycling
sites in Germany, Switzerland,
China, South Africa, India, Hong
Kong and the U.S.
In March, the Alba Group (Berlin,
Germany; www.alba.info) opened its
Hong Kong WEEE-Park, a new facility
for processing and recycling WEEE.
Located in the city's EcoPark north of
the airport, the new processing plant
is said to be the most modern in all
of Southeast Asia, and the biggest
combined facility for processing such
a wide range of WEEE in the world.
Initially, the plant will have a capacity
of 30,000 m.t./yr, with the option to
expand to 56,000 m.t./yr.
and operation of the plant,
Alba Group's contract -
the largest in its history
- includes the development
and operation of a
city-wide collection system
with five satellite collection
centers and a fleet
of heavy goods vehicles
(HVGs) over 10 years.
The facility will handle " legally
regulated " electronic
waste,
comprising
large
household devices, including
air conditioners, refrigerators,
television sets, washing machines
and computers.
3444 BioN_Modular ad_Layout 1 12/13/17 12:25 PM Page 1
In addition to the construction
Emerging process technology
While traditional processing plants
continue to expand, efforts are also
underway to develop new processes
for recovering valuable resources
from e-waste. For example, Mint Innovation
(Auckland, New Zealand;
www.mintinnovation.co) is developing
a hybrid approach that combins
hydrometallurgy and biotechnology
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15
FIGURE 2. Hereaus workers discussing the production process at
the Wartburg plant
to recover gold from printed circuit
boards (PCBs). " We take comminuted
PCBs, put them through a
leach process, and contact the resulting
pregnant lixiviant with select
microorganisms, " explains
chief
scientific officer Ollie Crush. " These
microbes are able to specifically
biosorb precious metals, like gold,
and enable both the purification and
concentration of metal in one step.
The process runs at ambient pressure
and temperature and doesn't
utilize cyanide. "
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Chemical Engineering July 2018

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Chemical Engineering July 2018
