silver, as well as rare earth materials, copper, tin,
cobalt, palladium, and tungsten, all of which
can be sold on or used for future iPhones. Able
to disassemble up to 200 iPhones an hour,
the device can recover materials that traditional
recycling plants cannot, including Apple-specific
aluminum alloys, which can then be converted
into new Apple products or ‘returned to the
market,’ which reduces the need to mine for
more resources from the Earth and creates a
more sustainable supply chain for all. According
to Apple, the company has “successfully piloted
ways to recover and reuse cobalt from our
lithium-ion batteries,” and continues to innovate
in the disassembly sector, having previously
retired the Liam robot.Liam – An Innovation Story