Rockwell Automation helps Royal Mint with new e-waste electronics

The deployment of the PlantPAx DCS at The Royal Mint's facility in Llantrisant, Wales, is the most recent chapter in a successful 15-year working relationship between Rockwell Automation and The Royal Mint. The system is used to monitor and control a chemical extraction process that can recover gold from waste printed circuit board equipment. The extraction technology, which was only at lab scale a few years ago, has been successfully scaled and is now operational at its site in Llantrisant.

"It's incredibly exciting to see new technology taking huge strides like this," said Phil Hadfield, UK managing director at Rockwell Automation. "With e-waste being a major sustainability challenge across the globe, technologies like this are essential towards carbon reduction and material re-use."

According to Statista, electronic waste is one of the world's fastest-growing waste streams. With 62 million metric tons generated across the world in 2022, the volume of discarded electronic material has nearly doubled since 2010. With e-waste generation forecast to exceed 80 million metric tons by 2030, improved recycling and recovery infrastructure will be needed.

Tony Baker, director of manufacturing innovation at The Royal Mint, said: "The successful collaboration with Rockwell Automation and the deployment of its DCS solution allowed us to demonstrate the technical viability of the technology to operate at scale. This puts us firmly on the road to our 4,000-ton per annum target, and discussions are already well underway with regards to usage of the recovered materials, as are the plans to expand the technology further."