Swindon environmental technology innovator Tetronics International is at the forefront of a ground‐breaking project to extract precious metals such as gold and silver from discarded phones, TVs and toasters.
Consumer devices sold in the UK over the next five years are forecast to contain metal worth an estimated £1bn – yet at present metal in any broken or out-dated products that are recycled is recovered overseas in large waste-handling plants. 
South Marston-based Tetronics is leading a consortium of UK firms to develop the UK’s first integrated small plant to sustainably process electronic waste to recover pure precious metal.
The group, which also includes two Welsh firms, has received a £600,000 grant from Innovate UK, the Swindon-based Government body which funds, supports and connects innovative businesses in research to accelerate sustainable economic growth for the UK.
Once up and running, the plant will extract precious metals found in electronic waste including platinum group metals, gold and silver and could act as a prototype for a new series of smaller and more localised plants.
Electronic products weighing around 5.6m tonnes are forecast to be bought by consumers between now and 2020 in the UK alone.
These will contain components more than 30 tonnes of gold, more than 600 tonnes of silver and more than three tonnes of platinum group metals – when recovered this would have a total market value of more than £1bn.
At present British handlers of electronic waste typically ship products abroad to a small number of large refiners, which are designed for the recovery of base metals, such as copper. As a result, precious metal extraction is a by‐product in a much larger process, leading to delays in recovering the metal and reduced precious metal recovery efficiencies.
The new development will enable localised waste processing opportunities in the UK and will allow independence from the large refiners. It will also mean around 98% of precious metals in electronics waste being recovered domestically, which can be sold on for use in new products.
The plant being developed by Tetronics and its partners, which is set to open in mid‐2016, will use proven plasma smelting technology as part of an integrated process dedicated to the recovery of precious metals from electronic waste.
The industry‐leading technology is already used to extract precious metals from catalytic converters found in cars and from industrial catalysts used to make petrol.
Tetronics CEO Graeme Rumbol said: “The British economy is missing out on £1bn simply because we are not recovering the value found in electronic waste in an efficient way.
“The grant from Innovate UK will allow us to develop a demonstration facility, which we hope will lead to British companies being able to install the technology in future.
“Being awarded the £600,000 highlights how Tetronics is at the very forefront of innovations in green technology and resource recovery.”
Tetronics partners in the consortium are Metech Recycling and Vale Europe.
