Great news about your son Bob, bet you're more than chuffed, and very well done to him.
That device looks superb. I'm not a metallurgist, but like others, I suspect the reason/s for not re-using it must be the "legal climate" we live in.
Having said that however, being a retired aircraft engineer, I suspect the device COULD be re-used if it went through a process like, for example, the full overhaul of an aero engine.
In brief terms, an engine is stripped (to individual components), thoroughly cleaned (in various ways), then inspected (against laid down criteria). The end result is that the overhauler ends up with 3 piles of bits - a definitely scrap pile, a pile of repairable bits (against laid down procedures and methods), and a serviceable pile. In the end the scrap bits are replaced with new, the repairable bits are repaired, and the whole lot, along with the serviceable bits, are all re-assembled then tested (again against a set of defined test criteria). At the end of all that the overhauler returns the engine to service with a legally-binding certificate that the engine is good to go.
If all that sounds complicated and expensive, it is. The overhauler needs a huge investment in equipment (many millions) to even be allowed to offer his overhaul services in the first place; and a typical full overhaul of one engine can easily cost the customer a couple of million, take a couple of months+, and need around 6,000 man hours. But against the cost of a new engine (depending on type that can easily be 10 million and more) it obviously makes commercial sense, and as above, all the legalities are covered every step of the way.
Against that, I wonder how many of your son's devices are in use in the UK every year? And that device "only" costs 20 thousand quid!
To set up something like the above "legally-approved" system would alone cost a huge amount (never mind the cost of doing the overhaul work itself), and at a guess I'd think that even though the demands of overhauling and re-issuing such a device are (perhaps?) a bit less technically demanding than the demands of overhauling an aero engine, I bet my bottom dollar that the cost of setting up the required legally-binding approvals would be absolutely immense.
So my guess is that no one (company or organisation) would want to take the commercial risk of making such investments because the pay back would most probably take a very L O N G time.
Maybe all the above is wide of the mark, and like you I hate to see waste of such obviously excellent materials, not to mention excellent engineering design and manufacture. But I guess that apart from scrap metal values, there's little chance of re-using the device, or otherwise recovering that initial cost.
AES
