Symposium EN10: Critical Materials for Energy—Extraction, Functionality and Recycling
December 04, 2024
Elliot Menu, Polytechnique Montreal
Green Circular Critical and Strategic Metal Recovery in a Laboratory Context
Written by In Young Park
Elliot Menu of Polytechnique Montreal presented a sustainable “green metallurgy” method for gold recovery, addressing the limitations of traditional hydrometallurgy, which relies on strong oxidizing agents and produces contamination. The proposed method uses hydrogen peroxide and organic acids derived from food waste to selectively oxidize base metals, leaving gold intact, which is then recovered via simple filtration. This approach eliminates toxic reagents, operates at room temperature, and avoids gold downcycling, making it both eco-friendly and energy-efficient. Scanning electron microscopy-energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy analysis confirmed the purity and uniform gold coverage of recovered samples. Future work includes developing electrodes with recovered gold, analyzing their electrical properties, and expanding recovery efforts to include other electrode sources.
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