Samsung is mining the Galaxy Note 7 for its metals to use in Note Fan Edition

Samsung has announced today that it is planning on recycling parts from recovered Note 7 phones to re-use in the Galaxy Note Fan Edition

If you’re thinking that it’s a little dangerous to be using parts from an explosive phone, don’t worry, they aren’t planning on using the batteries.

According to the press release, the plan is to harvest the “key reusable components such as OLED display modules, memory semiconductors, and camera modules”. What’s more, it’s going to recover the valuable metals, including cobalt, copper, silver, and even gold. 

Samsung is estimating that it is going to recover 157 tonnes of these metals, which given the size of the components, just goes to show the sheer scale of the production of the Note 7. 

Too hot to handle

The Note 7 was a great phone, but due in part to battery sizing issues, it had the unfortunate habit of setting on fire. The Note Fan Edition is essentially the same phone with a smaller battery, so it makes sense to reuse Note 7 components to make it. 

The Note Fan Edition is currently only available in Korea, for a price of 699000 KRW ($610). 

Samsung has said that “overseas sales will be decided later”, but given that the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 is rumored for an August release, it may be a better move for Samsung to leave the Note 7 behind it. 

Via Tech Crunch

Andrew London

Andrew London is a writer at Velocity Partners. Prior to Velocity Partners, he was a staff writer at Future plc.