Abstract
This paper describes an outline for a national strategy to establish stable security for rare metal resources. It also introduces a national project regarding rare metal recycling being conducted by the Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation (JOGMEC). Finally, the paper demonstrates the “Reserve to Stock” concept whereby various rare metal concentrates would be stocked and used as resources in the future.
The JOGMEC project demonstrates that it is possible to develop a new recovery process. In such a process, the installed parts would need to be separated from the PWBs for concentrating rare metals. It was also demonstrated that gold and copper components could be recovered in conventional copper smelting plants. The Project also discovered that “parts separation” (the mutual separation of installed parts) could work to concentrate various kinds of rare metals.
