Muirhead Avionics/AMETEK MRO is the first specialist avionics MRO business to trade with The Royal Mint’s new factory that has been set up to extract precious metals from circuit boards. On average, Muirhead Avionics near London, generates around 100kg of e-waste per month and this now goes to The Royal Mint in Llantrisant, South Wales, for processing.

David Bentley, Divisional Vice President at Muirhead Avionics, says the Company has a strong focus on sustainable practices and when it moved into its new facility some 18 months ago, an energy neutral system to minimise the organisation’s carbon footprint was established from the outset.  “Finding an innovative, viable and practical way to recycle our waste circuit boards has always been high on our list of priorities.  So, we are delighted to partner with The Royal Mint, Britain’s oldest company with a history spanning more than 1,100 years, and the original maker of UK coin,” he says.

Globally, a record 62 million tonnes of e-waste was produced in 2022, up 82% from 2010 and this is set to rise another 32% to 82 million tonnes in 2030. “If we can play our part and help preserve rare and precious metals for future generations but reducing dependence on traditional mining and encouraging more sustainable practices, then in our small way we are demonstrating to the aviation industry that there are innovative solutions out there if you look for them,” enthuses Bentley.

The Royal Mint’s 3,700 square metre facility uses world-first patented chemistry from Canadian clean tech company Excir. This extracts gold from printed circuit boards (PCBs) found in everyday items, such as TVs, laptops and mobile phones, in minutes. Excir’s chemistry works at room temperature, creating a more energy efficient and cost-effective method of gold recovery. 

The boards go through several processes to be reverse engineered, and the different materials are separated into groups. The gold-rich components are then sent to the chemical processing line, where gold is extracted from the circuit boards within minutes via a liquid process called leaching. The leached gold is then removed from the liquid solution via precipitation and filtration. These processes produce a gold powder, which is further refined and melted in a furnace at approximately 1100 degrees Celsius, to create an ingot with a purity of 999.9. 

The Royal Mint’s facility has the capacity to process up to 4,000 tonnes of circuit boards per year, recovering gold and other precious metals such as copper, silver and palladium. 

“The amount of gold, platinum and silver within avionics equipment has increased with technology advances due to the superior conductive and corrosion resistant properties,” continues Bentley. “The process with The Royal Mint was easy to set up and manage. We let them know what we have by sending photographs and weights, and they collect the batch of circuit boards and attached accessories such as connectors and heat sinks from all of our scrap units and replaced components.”  

Bentley goes on to say that this innovative activity complements the Muirhead Avionics’ sustainability programme at the new facility near Heathrow Airport.  It forms part of a continuously evolving range of initiatives which includes solar panels, green living walls, electric vehicle chargers, smart lighting and electronic insulating blinds on the windows.