Scientists Turn an iPhone to Dust to Find Out What's Inside

With the right tools, it's easy to take a look inside a smartphone and discover all the different components that make these complex communication devices work. But looking at the components doesn't tell you what's in them, or how much of each chemical element they contain. To discover that, you need to reduce one down to dust and run a chemical analysis.

That's exactly what Dr Arjan Dijkstra and Dr Colin Wilkins, geologists from the University of Plymouth's School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, decided to do. They took an iPhone and blended it down to a fine powder. Then they mixed it with sodium peroxide, a very powerful oxidizer, at 500 degrees Celsius. The final result being the powder was dissolved into acid and became suitable for chemical analysis.

The video above was produced through a collaboration with animation company Real World Visuals. It shows the complete breakdown of the iPhone ($170.00 at Amazon) into chemical elements and visualizes how much of each is used. What's eye opening in the video is the sheer volume of the materials used when considering over 1.4 billion smartphones are being produced each year.

The amounts used per phone may seem tiny, but the scientists point out that in order to get these amounts a lot of mining needs to happen. This includes mining 10-15kg of ore, which breaks down to include 7kg of high-grade gold ore, 1kg of copper ore, 750 grams of typical tungsten, and 200 grams of nickel ore. Now scale that mining up for all the phones produced in a year and you get some idea of the impact this has on the world's mining operations and resources.

Following the experiment, Dr Wilkins explained, "Mining can be part of the solution to the world's problems. But we are now in a climate where people are becoming more socially responsible and interested in the contents of what they are purchasing. Partly on the back of this, several of the major mobile phone companies have committed to upping their recycling rates. It is a positive sign that the throwaway society we have lived in for decades is changing, and we hope this project will encourage more people to ask questions about their own behaviours."

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