Finns use mushrooms to recover gold and silver from mobile phones

Scientists from Finland have found an ecological way to recover various metals from discarded mobile phones.
Scientists at the VTT Technical Research Center in Finland say that 100,000 phones contain 2.5 kilograms of gold, 25 kilograms of silver and as much as 900 kilograms of copper. However, since all these metals are recovered with the use of toxic cyanide, only 20 percent of the recovered material can be used.

Since this method is not environment-friendly, scientists decided to commit to finding a method that is acceptable, cheap and practical. And they have come to a solution.

Mobile phones are first ground into fine dust which is then sent to a filter made of mushroom mycellium that enables the recovery of as much as 80% of the gold.

ecology

mobile phone recyclying

VTT

gold

silver

mobile phone metals

copper

cyanide

mushrooms