They are in mobile devices and wind turbines: 17 chemical elements, the rare earths. World leader China has limited exports and pushed up prices. Now the recycling of valuable raw materials is to be promoted.
In Germany's households store true treasures. Alone 80 millions of old mobile phones are forgotten in drawers or cellars, as well as countless computers, monitors, TVs and other electronics. They contain copper and gold, silver and lesser-known metals such as tantalum, neodymium, indium or yttrium. Once they are installed in a product, they are often lost. The recycling of rare earths and strategic metals is still in its infancy.
"With the well-known technical procedures we can recover copper and gold from the electronic scrap," says Prof. Kerstin Kuchta, who is researching at the TU Hamburg-Harburg. A ton of cell phone scrap holds up to 300 grams of gold. For the rare earths there is still no mature process to recover the materials on a large scale. That could be done in five to ten years, the scientist estimates. "The realization that these raw materials are scarce and precious has arrived in the industry," says Kuchta. The efforts of science and industry have increased significantly.
Around 130 tons of rare earths are produced annually, almost exclusively in China. In other countries there are certainly deposits, but they have not yet been mined. "China is closing the market more and more," says the researcher. In Germany alone, 000 to 100 tons could be recovered through recycling. "Those are small quantities, but they could also relax the market somewhat." The miniaturization of electronics is advancing further, so that smaller quantities of rare earths are also required.
On Tuesday, 200 waste management experts from the German-speaking region will meet for two days at the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce to discuss the recycling of electronic waste. "This is not only a valuable material, but also an environmental problem," says the spokesman for the Hamburg city cleaners, Reinhard Fiedler. The electronic devices are not only valuable materials installed, but also toxic substances. Separating and processing the different substances is technically a very demanding process. In order to facilitate recycling, according to experts, attention should be paid to the possible reuse of recyclable materials already in the construction of new equipment.
So far, many devices do not even get back into the recycling cycle. It is estimated that more than 150 000 tons of used electrical and electronic equipment are exported from Germany to Africa and Asia. The metals in it are worth billions. So far, there are no incentives for consumers to return their used equipment. One possibility would be, for example, a deposit system.
