This week, two students from Buenos Aires were highlighted for an interesting recycling project to extract gold from disused electronic components.
The proposal is called “Your Scrap is Pure Gold,” an idea by students Luca Osuna and Luca Riubiera from Technical High School No. 5 “Dos de abril” in Lomas de Zamora.
The recycling plan involves two stages: the first one is the extraction of gold from disused electronic components.
Additionally, in a second phase, they also devised an option to turn the remaining waste generated by old electronic devices into bricks for construction.
Therefore, both students and the technical school were recognized by the municipality with the first prize in the Innovation in Community contest.
Youth with ideas: details of the project to recycle disused electronic devices
Last week, Osuna and Riubiera presented their project “Your Scrap is Gold” to the contest’s jury. They competed against 12 other proposals from Lomas de Zamora.
As detailed in the winning presentation, first, a chemical solution with acids -hydrochloric acid and hydrogen peroxide- is used to “uncover” the gold.
Given that hydrochloric acid is not strong enough to react with gold, it is used to dissolve the base metals inside the electronic devices. This way, the precious metal is “released.”
As explained by Pablo Enjo, their chemistry teacher, in an interview with La Unión newspaper, the students defended “the entire process before the jury. From the chemical extraction of gold from electronic scrap and the treatment of acids to the transformation of the remaining plastics and resin from the boards into construction bricks.”
This proposal not only allows for the recovery of valuable gold from non-functional electronic devices. It also aims to reuse all the materials they are made of in bricks.
The excitement of the kids and the importance of technical schools
After being awarded the first place in the contest Innovation in Community in Lomas de Zamora, the young students, their families, and their teachers were thrilled.
For Enjo, it was a “memorable day” at the National University of Lomas. “Our kids were calm, with the confidence gained from their previous science fairs participation,” highlighted the teacher.
Furthermore, the teacher emphasized the role of public technical schools: “This came out of the classrooms, from the dedication of students who believed in recycling complex waste, from teachers and principals who supported, committed, and believed in their students.”
Now, the first place for the project “Your Scrap is Pure Gold” will allow Technical High School No. 5 in Temperley to acquire new equipment.
The Municipality, led by Federico Otermín, provided them with three computers for the school and prizes for the students.
Additionally, this Tuesday, Osuna and Riubiera were also recognized in the Senate of Argentina for their recycling proposal.
“We see this as an opportunity to highlight the importance of technical schools, to make them a topic of conversation for everyone,” added Enjo.
“It is a recognition of science carried out in school, by and for our community,” he concluded.
