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Material Recovery Lab

Product
Developers: Apple
Date of the premiere of the system: April, 2019
Branches: Electrical equipment and microelectronics

2019: Start of laboratory

In the middle of April, 2019 Apple announced opening of laboratory on processing of materials in which robots disassemble old devices for the purpose of extraction of precious metals, such as copper, aluminum and cobalt. The laboratory which received the name Material Recovery Lab will also become the research platform for studying of new opportunities of robotics and machine learning.

Apple started laboratory in which robots disassemble electronics for processing of materials

The laboratory about 840 square meters is located at the same plant in Austin (State of Texas), as earlier provided Daisy — the robot of Apple intended for processing of 1.2 million smartphones a year. The laboratory became one more step of Apple to production of all products from the processed or renewable materials. Apple did not determine yet date to which it intends to achieve this goal though some devices of the company, for example, of MacBook Air, already contain the aluminum received from the utilized phones.

The vice president of Apple for environment problems, policy and social initiatives Lisa Jackson noted that the data received in a new research will be used by designers and engineers at new product development of Apple.

In 2019 the company for the first time published the digits testimonial of the fact that 7.8 million devices brought in Apple for exchange in the 2018th were processed and found new users. The Daisy robot also participated in this process – the batteries disassembled by it using cobalt are already sent for processing.

Earlier the company faced criticism that thin and easy constructions of its devices complicate utilization with a possibility of the subsequent processing. Besides, many popular products of the company, for example, AirPods earphones, it is impossible to process as parts in them are fastened by glue. Apple intends to investigate these problems and to propose profitable all solutions.[1]

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