Flash Separation of Metals by Electrothermal Chlorination

great paper from the team at Rice university, likely these results are being used to garner some support and grab attention of key players in the industry. If this can scale
MTM will be at the forefront of a greener and more sustainable metals industry.

https://chemrxiv.org/engage/api-gateway/chemrxiv/assets/orp/resource/item/66a1627a01103d79c58aaa83/original/flash-separation-of-metals-by-electrothermal-chlorination.pdf

Key points

1. Indium recovery and purity from used transparent conductive films (e-waste) = 95% purity and 92% yield
2. gallium recovery from LED ewaste = 97.5% purity and 86.% yield
3. Tantalum recovery from Ta capacitors = two step process to achieve 96% purity and 88% yield
4. scaling of process underway - gone from mg to Grams. Current productivity expected to be 144g/day of indium at this level
5. chlorine is recoverable/recyclable and process project to be done at a continuous level to selectively seperate metals
6. FJH expected to decrease capex by 20-40%
7. FJH OPEX to be $800-900 vs $3500 (acid leaching) or $1700 (alkaline digestion) for a 1 tonne scale per year projections - further reductions in FJH equipment costs possible
8. global warming potential (amount of CO2 equivalent per tonne of feedstocks) was 19-42% lower than acid leaching and alkaline digestion
9. Cumulative energy demand showed 26-65% reduction
10. significant lower water resource depletjon