A machine that can disassemble two mobile phones per minute could help give raw materials a second life. Source: Sascha Pohflepp/CC BY 2.0As consumers upgrade to the latest iteration of smartphone or electronic device, older devices are often discarded in landfills where their sometimes toxic ingredients leech into the soil or they are stowed away and forgotten entirely, serving no real purpose. However, researchers believe that the valuable metals and natural resources in such devices can experience a second life.

The valuable materials in everything from automobiles and medical implants to mobile phone components often come from countries such as China. However, once those materials become components in an electronic device, they aren't likely to be used again.

"If we could make new ones out of the old ones, it's a way of putting these materials back to use," said Dr. Cord Fricke-Begemann from the Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology ILT in Aachen, Germany.

Yet, that process is challenging without a system for automatically disassembling the variety of electronic devices.

"There are hundreds of different types of mobile phones so we need a device that is flexible and can handle all of them," said Dr. Fricke-Begemann.

As such, the ADIR Project with Dr. Fricke-Begemann and colleagues is attempting to solve that problem with the construction of a machine that will be capable of opening the devices and applying a laser to unsolder the components from the electronic circuit boards, making the retrieval of valuable materials such as tantalum and neodymium possible.

"The idea is to have a machine that can disassemble two mobile phones in a minute and take out the important things quickly," said Dr. Fricke-Begemann.

Retrieving materials from electronic waste for use elsewhere — called urban mining — would open up another source for raw materials and will contribute to a circular economy where byproducts from one industrial process feed into another process.

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