Gold has from ancient time symbolized honor and extraordinariness, and it is the most important element is many artistic designs. Nowadays, UWin Nanotech makes use of exclusive environmental recycling technology, refines full environmental gold, and makes the refining process have greater significance. It also brings about brand new value for the cultural and creative industries.

Besides coming from exclusive designs, the value of golden works also comes from a link of value from quality materials and origins. In the current market, the most widely used gold sources are mining and reworked units; however there is no way to show the value of the artworks themselves. However, UWin Nanotech has begun creating a new approach: Full Environmental Gold, which has one more layer of plating for culture and creativity with an invisible green sheen.

Full environmental gold refers to its source and the refining process, which both conform to the principles of environmental protection.

All of the sources used by UWin Nanotech are PCB panels from waste electronics products. These PCB panels are from dismantling, which is currently rapidly producing e-waste, and then refining is carried out. According to statistics provided by the United Nations, the e-waste problem is becoming more serious, and it is estimated that there will be 65.4 million metric tons by 2017. If it is not effectively dealt with now, it will create a major ecological disaster in the future.

However, the current recycling methods for global e-waste are creating even more severe environmental problems. The processes not only use burning methods, which create dioxins and suspended micro-particulates(PM 2.5), but the refining processes also increase the amount of toxic substances, such as sodium cyanide and potassium ferricyanide, which are harmful to people and the environment. In addition, the benefits from recycling are not very large.

In order to change this type of low-quality recycling methods, UWin Nanotech has researched and developed a type of non-cyanide gold stripping technology that enables precious metals such as gold, silver, palladium, platinum, nickel, copper, tin, aluminum, indium and titanium as well as stainless steel to be stripped.

Furthermore, the solution is almost completely neutral, which is not only good for the environment but also harmless to people. It is feasible for environmental protection and also preserves human dignity.

The gold stripping formula – UW-860 Cyanide-free Environmental Gold Stripping Prescription has a pH 7.4. It is a neutral and environmentally-friendly gold stripping additive that can carry out gold stripping in containers made of materials, such as polyethylene (PE) and (PP) polypropylene. Moreover, it will not harm the substrate, regardless of whether it is a PCB panel, a software panel, plastic, porcelain, stainless steel, or silicon wafers. Finally, by cooking it in nitric acid, an environmentally friendly gold with a purity of over 99.99% can be quickly extracted.

In addition, this kind of full environmental gold not only has substantial economic value, but it simultaneously has educational and environmental significance. It can provide new ideas and inspiration to creative people and users.

Because it has this type of connotation, UWin Nanotech’s full environmental gold has attracted the attention of Hsinchu County’ Environmental Protection Bureau, and this golden broom set has been used promote environmental education and environmentally-friendly recycling mechanisms.

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This golden broom set weighs approximately 40g, and it was extracted from a 700kg waste printed circuit board. Compared with traditional mining, it is not only more beneficial, but it also eliminates e-waste. It is a “win-win-win” environmental product.

“Environmental protection is our most important core value, and we anticipate being able to use our own environmentally-friendly recycling technology as a source of strength for the earth and for humanity. We also anticipate that other derivative environmentally friendly products will be able to make contributions to education and cultural development,” said Kenny Hsu of UWin Nanotech’s managing director.

A diagram of manufacturing sources for full environmental gold ornaments.