Technological Metal Recycling Idea using Fish Sperm

A process developed by a Japanese team could perhaps be the key ingredient for extraction of

technological metals. This process utilizes fish sperm to recycle and extract tech metals from things;

such as electronic waste and magnets.

This particular process involves the use of a delicacy in Japan – milt and salmon – the sperm of which is

used to separate and recover several types of tech metals, and is applicable in numerous aqueous

solutions. This has revolutionized the extraction process, making it a much cheaper and green

alternative as compared to the traditional extraction method using chemicals.

This is not the first time sea life or its DNA has been applied in uncommon ways. The strangest of these

discoveries was the mass production of silver nanoparticles using fireproof coatings.

Industries today, are more inclined towards using eco friendly methods instead of traditional metal

extraction methods, to avoid damaging the environment. A fine example of this initiative is the use of

hydrometallurgy rather than pyrometallurgy, including bio-mining with the help of unique bacteria to

recover various types of metals, and even extracting gold, using simple sugars.

The Japanese team that discovered the process is based at the University of Tokyo and is being led by

Yoshio Takahashi, along with the help of other institutions in Japan. The original study was regarding the

absorption of tech metals on the surface of bacterial cells and discovered the crucial role of phosphate

site in binding the ions of these metals. This provided an incentive to study fish DNA that also has a

phosphate site which can be used to extract technological metals.

Since DNA extracts are dissolvable, it needed to be attached to a solid substrate like cellulose. On the

other hand, milt is in solid state and doesn’t dissolve. It is also easily available at a cheap price; the

Japanese fishing industry discards thousands of tons of milt every year.

The team then created a powdered form of milt and a solution as well that contained dysprosium,

neodymium, and trivalent iron – the main metals that the neodymium magnets are composed off. They

also created other referenced solutions. When the powdered form of milt was added to this particular

solution, it was detected that the metal ions in the solution had considerable affinity towards for the

phosphate in the milt powder. Tech metals where subsequently recovered using the powdered form of

milt along with the use of centrifugation and acid.

Jean-Claude Bünzli; an investigator of technological metals at the Swiss federal institute of technology,

Lausanne; mentioned that the entire idea of using cheap milt glands in order to separate and absorb

technological metals from the iron found in scrap magnets, is interesting. While the proposed standard

operating procedure doesn’t suppress magnets dissolved in strong acids, it still deserves attention. He

also added that scaling up these operations using this technique could very well prove to be

problematic, but it might be useful for removing tech metals in alloys, like printed circuit boards, hard

disks, and cell phones.

Yoshio Takahashi indeed recognizes that the recovery of tech metals from scraped magnets isn’t big

business, but the salmon milt technique may very well be suited for recycling and extracting other

elements on a sizable scale. However, the team has not yet revealed the effectiveness of the process on

other elements. But Takahashi seems quite confident that capacity of ion-exchange in salmon milt is

quite high.

About Electio Middle East

Electio Middle East is an international commodity brokerage focusing primarily on Technology Metals.

Electio is the largest brokerage in its sector and the first company worldwide to offer a niche investment

platform enabling judicious investors to diversify their portfolios into the Tech Metals Sector.