From waste boards to "rich ores": The green rebirth journey of PCBs and chips

#Industry ·2026-02-22

A discarded mobile phone motherboard weighs less than 50 grams, but it contains 0.2 grams of gold, 13 grams of copper, palladium, silver, and rare earth elements. When they are casually discarded, it's not just a "evaporation" of resources, but also a "bomb" for the environment. We subject PCBs and integrated circuits to a five-step process of "disassembly - sorting - stripping - gold recovery - recycling": First, we use AI vision to accurately identify reusable chips. Then, we convert harmful brominated epoxy resins into fuel through low-temperature oxygen-free pyrolysis. Next, we use microbial-electrochemical coupling technology to selectively leach copper, gold, and palladium, achieving a purity of 99.99% and reducing energy consumption by 72% compared to traditional acid washing. Finally, the recycled metals return to wafer factories and smelters, and the recycled resins become the framework of new boards, completing the closed-loop of the "electronic mine". Every piece of waste board is the starting point of the next computing power; making recycling no longer the end, but the "second wafering" of chips.

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