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In context: The Royal Mint, which has been producing British coins since the Middle Ages, is now adapting to a world where physical money is becoming less essential. In an effort to reinvent itself, the long-standing institution is transitioning into a professional e-waste treatment facility.
After announcing its "revolutionary" e-waste recycling plan a few years ago, the UK Royal Mint has now begun turning electronic devices and PCBs into pure gold. The government-owned company is using its industrial plant in Llantrisant, Wales, to extract gold from e-waste and transform it into jewelry products and, eventually, commemorative coins.
Traditional methods for recovering gold from PCBs are highly energy-intensive and rely on toxic chemicals, according to the Royal Mint's operations director, Leighton John. The Llantrisant facility, however, uses a new technique developed by the Canadian company Excir, which reportedly achieves the same results at room temperature and extracts gold much more quickly.
The Royal Mint expects to process up to 4,000 tons of e-waste each year, extracting 99 percent of the gold from PCBs and producing up to 450 kilograms of the precious metal. During the extraction process, circuit boards are heated to remove electronic components. Coils, capacitors, pins, and transistors are then sorted and shredded before being processed in an on-site chemical plant.
Excir's technology immerses the components in a chemical solution, which is then filtered to leave behind pure gold powder. This powder can be heated in a furnace to form solid gold once again. Traditionally, the UK has shipped its e-waste overseas for processing, but now the Royal Mint can handle the entire process in-house, according to John.
The Royal Mint emphasizes that end-of-life electronics, discarded computers, and anything "with a battery or a plug" contribute to 50 million tons of e-waste per year in the UK. Furthermore, e-waste is expected to reach 120 million tons by 2050. A recent UN report indicates that global e-waste is growing at a rate of 2.6 million metric tons annually.
While innovative solutions for creating easily recyclable circuit board materials are in development, Microsoft's hardware restrictions for Windows 11 could potentially turn hundreds of millions of computers into e-waste. The Royal Mint's new gold recycling initiative offers an additional solution to the growing e-waste problem and provides an opportunity to diversify the traditional coin-making business. With the decreasing demand for physical coins, this e-waste processing facility could help Mint employees retain their jobs for the time being.