Researchers at Da-Yeh University (大葉大學) in Changhua County have recently made a breakthrough in recycling CD and DVD discs by using a leaching technique that can clean all the coating from the discs in a few minutes without damaging them.
The technique, involving alcohol and nitric acid leaching and supersonic cleaning, won a gold medal at this year’s Taipei International Invention Show and Technomart late last month.
The technique, which has been granted patent rights by the Intellectual Property Office, was developed by a masters’ degree graduate in the Department of Environmental Engineering under the guidance of professor Lee Ching-hua (李清華).
Lee said the two sides of each disc have to be separated and then soaked in alcohol for a minute, before being moved to a supersonic washing machine to get rid of the memory dye and ink.
The DVD discs are then placed in a nitric acid bath and afterwards in another supersonic cleaner to remove the protective coating and metal reflective layers.
The second leaching is followed by a water wash, which leaves clean, transparent polycarbonate discs.
CD discs can be cleaned the same way, but the processing period is even shorter as they do not have two sides that need to be separated first, Lee said.
Lee said used CD and DVD discs are sold at about NT$15 per kilogram on average, but recycled discs that have been cleaned by means of Yang’s technique could fetch NT$45 per kilogram.
About 60 million discs are thrown away each year in Taiwan.
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
BREACH OF CONTRACT: The bus operators would seek compensation and have demanded that the manufacturer replace the chips with ones that meet regulations Two bus operators found to be using buses with China-made chips are to demand that the original manufacturers replace the systems and provide compensation for breach of contract, the Veterans Affairs Council said yesterday. Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) yesterday said that Da Nan Bus Co and Shin-Shin Bus Co Ltd have fielded a total of 82 buses that are using Chinese chips. The bus models were made by Tron-E, while the systems provider was CYE Electronics, Lin said. Lin alleged that the buses were using chips manufactured by Huawei subsidiary HiSilicon Co, which presents a national security risk if the
The National Immigration Agency has banned two Chinese from returning to Taiwan, after they published social media content it described as disrespectful to national sovereignty. The agency imposed a two-month ban on a Chinese man surnamed Liang (梁) and a permanent ban on a woman surnamed Yang (楊), an influencer with 23 million followers, in October last year and last week respectively. Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) yesterday said on the sidelines of a legislative meeting that Chinese visitors to Taiwan are required to comply with the rules and regulations governing their entry permits. The government has handled the ban and
RSS