Dismantling smartphones in order to find out what components they are assembled from and what their maintainability is not uncommon in our time - recently announced or new items that have gone on sale are often subjected to this procedure. However, the purpose of the experiment by scientists at the University of Plymouth was not to identify which chipset or camera module is installed in the experimental device. And as the latter, they chose not the latest iPhone model. And all because the study was designed to establish the chemical composition of modern electronics.
The experiment began with the fact that the smartphone was crushed in a blender, after which the resulting small particles were mixed with a powerful oxidizing agent - sodium peroxide. Analysis of the chemical composition of this mixture showed that the tested phone contained 33 g of iron, 13 g of silicon, 7 g of chromium and small amounts of other substances. However, scientists noticed that in addition to them, 900 mg of tungsten, 70 mg of cobalt and molybdenum, 160 mg of neodymium, 30 mg of praseodymium, 90 mg of silver and 36 mg of gold were found in the crushed gadget.
The extraction of these rare elements requires the extraction of large volumes of ore from the bowels of the earth, which harms the ecology of our planet, the researchers noted. In addition, metals such as tungsten and cobalt often come from conflict zones in Africa. For the production of one device, it is necessary to extract an average of 10β15 kg of ore, including 7 kg of gold, 1 kg of copper, 750 g of tungsten and 200 g of nickel. In terms of tungsten concentration, a smartphone is ten times higher than rocks, and in terms of gold concentration, the excess can be a hundredfold. According to scientists, their experiment proved the need for careful processing of obsolete electronics.
Source: 3dnews.ru