5o M st
inn vative
c Mpanies
14
KosaKa smelting
and refining
For turning old
cell phones into
gold mines
2
The closest thing we
have to modern-day
alchemy may be
the work of Kosaka
Smelting and Refining,
the Japanese firm that
harvests gold and other
valuable metals from
old electronics. From
used mobile telephones,
Kosaka, a unit of the
metals-and-mining
company Dowa Holdings, can extract gold,
copper, silver, antimony, and other minerals, including the rare
earths necessary for
myriad high-tech
devices. One cell phone
can yield up to 20 milligrams of gold; that may
seem minuscule, but
consider this: A ton of
phones can provide
20 times more gold
than a ton of gold ore.
The company’s recycling process is based
on methods long used
by Dowa to get metals
from raw ore. Disused,
dismantled electronics
are heated to 1,300
degrees Celsius, at
which point 19 different
metals (so far) can be
extracted. It’s working
on ways to harvest more.
One target: neodymium,
a rare-earth essential
for magnets used in
everything from microphones to wind turbines.
Kosaka’s eco-friendly
innovation is well timed
politically and economically. China, which mines
about 93% of the world’s
rare-earth minerals,
has slashed exports of
them by 82% over the
past year. For a period
in late 2010, it cut off
Japan’s access to its rare
earths entirely. “We
are promoting the formation of a recycling-oriented society,”
Kosaka’s website says—
a modern take on the
ancient Platonic observation that necessity is
the mother of invention.
1
5
15 /
foursquare
For creating
a new way
to reward
consumer
loyalty
To understand what
Foursquare—the app that
rewards you for “checking
in” at shops, airport terminals,
and basically everywhere—
wants to do for businesses,
Tristan Walker, its business-
development director, suggests
thinking about stereotypical
big-screen chefs: “You know
how the chef in the movies
always goes out and thanks
the wealthy guy? We want to
replicate that with software.
