Green Metals

SMaRT@UNSW’s emerging Green Metals Technologies can derive from waste many of the essential and critical resources required for the electrification of society, and to achieve greater recycling, clean tech and advanced manufacturing capability.

The Green Metals processes involve extracting metals and alloys, including rare earth metals - like aluminium, copper, cobalt, gold and many others - from electronic and other wastes, such as computers, phones, batteries and PV.

SMaRT’s Thermal Disengagement Technology offers an innovative, efficient, and sustainable micro-recycling technique to separate the materials in complex, polymer-laminated, metal packaging waste called Green Aluminium.

Download SMaRT's Green Metals flier

These technologies will enable a more sustainable manufacturing of the hardware and infrastructure needed for the transition to electrification, while reducing waste, cost and the heavy environmental impact of using virgin and other resources. The technologies are either already transitioning, or ready to transition, to pilot scale or industrial scale.

Go to the Green Aluminium webpage

SMaRT has also developed a range of technologies related to improving the performance of hard surfaces. Using waste materials as layers, SMaRT has been able to modify various hard surfaces such as steel with these new layers for improved outcomes of those surface.

Go to the Surface modification technologies webpage

As SMaRT's research and development in this area advances, it is envisaged new MICROfactorie^TM Technology modules will be created, leveraging off our demonstration e-waste module located at the UNSW SMaRT Centre.

Go to e-waste MICROfactorie^TM Technology webpage