A business acquisition will bring British technology for extracting valuable e-scrap metals to the Asian market.
Singapore-headquartered Blue Planet Environmental Solutions, an integrated waste management company, this month acquired Liverpool-based Smart Creative Technologies, which developed a hydrometallurgical process to extract metals from e-scrap.
Smart Creative’s process uses non-hazardous chemicals and ultrasonic agitation. According to a press release, the ultrasonic agitation speeds up the process of extracting high yields of precious metals such as gold and palladium to less than 30 minutes. The company can also recover silver and lead from circuit boards and CRTs.
“With Blue Planet’s investment and access to its international networks, we can roll out our technology faster – especially to countries in Asia who urgently need it,” Jonathan Quinn, founder of Smart Creative Technologies, stated in the release.
Prashant Singh, CEO of Blue Planet, noted managing e-scrap is a growing challenge and opportunity in Asia.
“Policymakers, industry leaders and consumers are paying more attention to the current low-rates of recycling in Asia,” he stated. “They are looking for safe and sustainable processing technologies to ensure high resource recovery and safety for all those engaged.”
