Graphene oxide and chitosan sponge found to be ten times more efficient at removing gold from e-waste

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A team of chemists and materials scientists at the National University of Singapore, working with colleagues from Manchester University, in the U.K., and Guangdong University of Technology, in China, has developed a type of sponge made of graphene oxide and chitosan, that can be used to extract gold from electronic waste.

In their paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the group describes how they made their sponge and how well it worked during testing.

Prior research has shown that removing gold, silver and other metals from electronic equipment that is no longer useful, as a way to recycle such materials, is a difficult and often dirty business. Quite often it results in low yields and the generation of a variety of toxic pollutants.

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