Electrolytes and salts for precious metal plating with 100 % recycled precious metal content

The Umicore Group, a leader in metal recovery, introduces Nexyclus™ - the widest range of fully recycled precious metals. With Nexyclus™, the Electroplating business line is able to offer its usual high quality precious metal plating products containing up to 100% recycled precious metals on demand, while complying with its own strict specifications for responsible sourcing. Certificates such as the RJC-CoC and mass balance certificates guarantee transparency and sustainability.

The availability of natural precious metal deposits is becoming increasingly rare, which brings with it considerable economic and environmental challenges. On the one hand, reliable access to critical precious metals for a large number of industries is at risk and bottlenecks are repeatedly delaying entire production chains, especially for less systemically relevant applications. On the other hand, the extraction and processing of new precious metals is becoming increasingly difficult and therefore more energy-intensive, which leads to high CO2 emissions and thus places an additional burden on the emissions balance of processing companies.

Umicore is responding to this challenge with its idea of the circular economy and the launch of Nexyclus™. Under this brand name, the world's most comprehensive range of fully recycled and responsibly sourced precious metals is brought to market. On this basis, Umicore's business line now also offers electrolytes and salts for plating with gold, silver and the platinum group metals platinum, palladium and rhodium, which consist of 100% recycled precious metals.

Sustainability in plating

Electroplating is one of Umicore's core competencies. Its processes make it possible to apply metals to substrates in order to improve their properties such as corrosion resistance, hardness or electrical conductivity. With Nexyclus™, the German company is now also offering its products as a sustainable alternative to the standard range without compromising on quality. The recycled precious metals meet the highest standards and the products manufactured with them do not differ in terms of electrolyte or plating characteristics.

Umicore Electroplating's very well-known customers, among others, can now change over accordingly from one day to the next, as the respective products are interchangeable at any time. This enables customers to meet their own standards, the requirements of their clients or even country-specific regulations, for example in the jewelry, watch and fashion industries as well as in the electrical, automotive, semiconductor and medical technology sectors with regard to sustainable procurement or supply chain transparency and responsibility.

Three types of Nexyclus™

Umicore offers Nexyclus™ in three different types, which differ in terms of recycling and Chain of Custody (CoC) certificates. These variants offer customers flexibility and the opportunity to choose the solution best suited to their needs.

The Material Separation Certificate offers maximum transparency for recycled precious metals in accordance with the standards of the Responsible Jewellery Council (RJC). It requires strict separation of primary and recycled materials in the recycling and production facilities. The Mass Balance Certificate, on the other hand, processes primary and recycled materials together and allocates the proportion of recycled material in a rolling balance. A variation of this is the Book & Claim certificate. It is not linked to the physical flow of metals, but to equivalent precious metals - meaning it can also be used for non-physical precious metal transactions.

Responsible sourcing and certification

Umicore takes responsible sourcing very seriously. All Nexyclus™ products have certificates that ensure traceability and compliance with strict sustainability standards. All three certificates are in accordance with ISO standards and meet the LBMA/LPPM/RMI guidelines for responsible sourcing. To ensure compliance with these standards, Umicore has its models audited and certified by independent third parties, the renowned auditing and consulting firms PwC or KPMG.

Once the certificate has been issued, it no longer has an expiry date - the metal can be used for short-term applications or stored for long-term investment purposes. The Umicore Nexyclus™ Certificate is only valid for use by the direct beneficiary purchaser of the Nexyclus™ metal units for the entire period. The Umicore Nexyclus™ Certificate can therefore not be transferred to a downstream buyer without written authorization from Umicore - this restriction prevents unfair or multiple use of the certificate, which is an important concern for the company.

Pioneering solutions for customers

"We have always been proud to be able to offer our customers innovative and sustainable solutions. With Nexyclus™ plating, we are once again setting new standards in electroplating while helping our customers achieve their sustainability goals. We are already seeing an increasing demand for recycled metals that are responsibly sourced without a large carbon footprint," explains Manager Sales Andrea Grau. Thanks to Umicore's leading position in metal recovery and its many years of experience in recycling, the company is in a position to meet a correspondingly high demand easily and promptly.