Summary

Mint provides technology for sustainable metal recovery from a range of waste materials. The most abundant source of precious metals like gold, palladium and copper is in the ‘urban mine,’ which refers to waste materials such as scrap electronics and other waste streams. Small electronics typically contain ten to hundred times higher concentrations of precious metals than conventionally mined ores (Source). The company has created low-cost, low-impact biorefineries for extracting metals. Upon receipt, waste material is weighed and milled to a sand consistency to enable rapid metal recovery. Precious metals including gold, palladium and platinum are dissolved and extracted using the company’s proprietary technology. Other metals such as copper are recovered using a conventional electrochemical process.

Story

Mint was co-founded by Will Barker, who was an instrumental early employee at the cleantech New Zealand company, Lanzatech, which uses microbes to turn waste gas from steel plants into ethanol. Barker used a similar microbe-based technology to create a proprietary biometallurgy process with co-founder Ollie Crush.

Pic Credit: Mint (right and top)