The Australian Science Teachers Association School, Community and Industry Partnerships in Science (SCIps) Program enables schools to work together with community groups, local government, industry and/or other businesses on science-based projects related to their local community. The aim is to raise science awareness in each school and the wider community.
Two of the six WA winners, were from projects developed in conjunction with the CSRP. These projects are “Dispose of Properly: Dry Cell Battery Recycling” (involving All Saints’ College, CSRP, Parker Centre, Murdoch University and CSIRO Minerals) and “Identifying and Processing E-Waste” (involving Corpus Christi College, CSRP, Parker Centre, Murdoch University and Minerals Council of Australia).
Melville City Councillor Clive Robartson and All Saints College teacher Mr Lyndon Smith with student participants. |
Corpus Christi College students with Dr Dan Churach showing electronic waste they collected for the project. |
Metals recycling as the topic for these projects due to them being timely, topical and likely to interest the school students. Growing volumes of unwanted electronic products (e-waste) and spent batteries are becoming a serious problem in Australia and around the world. For example, it is estimated that by 2005 more than 45 million personal computers will become obsolete worldwide every year.
A group of Year 12 chemistry students at All Saints’ College are investigating the problem of recycling waste household batteries. The batteries will be collected by All Saints College and the City of Melville.
"Job number one will be a statistical analysis of just what batteries are thrown out,” says Mr Lyndon Smith, the All Saints’ College science teacher involved in the project. “We will then analyse them by atomic absorption spectroscopy at Murdoch University to see exactly what is in them.”
All Saints College students display assortment of batteries they have collected with the intention of recycling metals. |
Murdoch University staff member Mr Ken Seymour works with a group of All Saints College students analysing dry cell batteries with a scanning electron microscope. |
Students have conducted analytical work at Murdoch University Extractive Metallurgy labs in which common dry cell batteries will be opened and their contents will be leached into solution. These samples are being analysed by both Murdoch University instruments and ICP (Inductively Coupled Plasma Emission Spectrometry) at CSIRO in Waterford. The results from these analyses will indicate the types and percentage of metals making up the samples.
In addition, the students will look at pyrometallurgical or hydrometallurgical methods for reclaiming metals such as nickel, manganese and zinc from spent batteries in laboratory sessions at Murdoch.
In the other project, Corpus Christi College project is focusing on printed circuit boards, a common component of many electronic products, which contain gold, silver, copper, palladium, nickel, iron, tin and other metals. The participating teachers and students have collected and categorised various sources of waste printed circuit boards in the school and the local community, such as old computers and mobile phones.
Mr Lyndon Smith discusses the hydrometallurgical processes that All Saint College student participants will employ to recycle dry cell batteries. |
Corpus Christi College Year 10 students fine that it is more difficult then they thought to remove electronic circuit boards from old mobile phones. |
"The kids then experienced the challenges in dismantling electronics to extract printed circuit boards and then shredding the boards for further processing,” says Dr Churach. “Several laboratory sessions were held at Corpus Christi investigating chemical approaches to leach or dissolve some of the valuable metals from shredded boards, particularly the gold, silver and copper, and recover these separately.” These sessions were facilitated by Dr Jim Avraamides, Dr Nick Welham, Mr Ken Seymour and Dr Dan Churach.
"The kids were able to take away coins they plated with gold they have recycled from circuit boards.”
The projects are running during the first school semester of 2005.
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