Shulou(Shulou.com)06/02 Report--

Gold has always been the dream of mankind. However, things are scarce, and the more valuable things are, the harder it is to get them.

However, a French company has developed a new technology to extract gold from waste water, and has begun to use it.

Nani?! In the future, will I be able to reach the pinnacle of wealth at home by myself? Friends who think so, I can only wake you up with a basin of boiling water! As for why, let's start with this magical technology.

Waste water alchemy, what kind of magic technology is it?

Turning base metals into precious metals, especially gold, was an experiment that even Newton thought was worth doing, and even became a master of modern chemistry. In history, there are many royal families who hope to achieve longevity through alchemy.

It is impossible to live forever, and it is impossible to live forever in this life, but the matter of scientific alchemy has really been accomplished by contemporary scientists. And it is not extracted from metal material, it is refined gold from waste water.

It is not uncommon to have gold in the water, otherwise the American people in the last century would not have rushed to California to "look for gold". The report released by the Swiss Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology also confirmed that the sludge and sewage of 64 waste treatment plants in Switzerland contain large amounts of precious metals such as gold and silver.

However, because a small amount of gold in the water does not cause environmental harm and cannot be extracted on a large scale in the past, it can only be wasted, losing $1.8 million worth of gold each year.

But a French company called Magpie Polymers has changed that. The "gold sponge" they invented can be extracted from almost any liquid that might find gold.

When I heard that, my first reaction was, why didn't this technology be invented earlier? I felt that I had lost hundreds of millions of dollars in more than 20 years.

How on earth did such an awesome technology come true?

The researchers invented a polymer (purple dots) that can capture gold molecules and coated it in a grid of iron ion clusters connected by organic molecules. This sponge-like compound, when put into a gold-containing solution, will frantically capture gold molecules.

It is said that each gram of sponge can hold about one gram of gold. And 99% of the gold in the liquid can be salvaged in just two minutes.

After absorbing the gold, the skeleton of the sponge can be easily dissolved by hydrochloric acid, allowing humans to get gold particles with a purity of 23.9k. After experiments, Sponge can also capture 99% of the gold from Swiss sewage.

In other words, this technology can quickly, easily and reliably find precious metal molecules from a variety of liquids, and what is hidden behind is definitely a rich ore!

What other strange alchemy are there?

In order to realize the financial freedom of buying whatever I want as soon as possible, how can I only hang on the road of "turning waste water into gold"?

So I studied other unprofitable ways of scientific alchemy, such as:

The method of alchemy with seawater is similar to that of waste water, which is to capture gold molecules from aqueous solution by adsorption effect.

Mobile phone alchemy, one ton of gold mine can produce 40 smartphones, so it is more feasible to get gold from e-waste. After disassembling the eliminated old mobile phones, their components can also be precipitated into precious metals such as gold, silver and copper by means of pickling and burning.

Computer CPU is made up of elements such as copper, nickel and gold. As a result, it has also attracted a lot of wits, which are treated with some chemicals to form a solution, which can also be recycled after removing impurities. The trouble, however, is that there is no way to separate a single element from the mixture.

In addition to electronics, there are actually a lot of trace precious metals in industrial waste, aviation waste, cracks in the sidewalk, and even the human brain (this is crossed out).

Alchemy emerges one after another, why is the price of gold still strong?

When I think of scientific alchemy that Newton didn't even think of, I think there are so many that I feel like the richest man is waving to me.

However, when I was preparing to collect rags and refine the first bucket of gold, I thought again: since there are so many ways and gold is everywhere, why can the price of gold still be so strong? It always feels like something's wrong.

On second thought, I seem to have a general understanding of the true face of alchemy, that is, thankless.

First of all, whether it is wastewater, electronic products or CPU, the content of precious metals is very low, and the input-output ratio is too low. In fact, the method of recovering metal from waste water has been in existence since the 19th century, but it has not been popularized because of its high cost. And a CPU can only produce 0.08g of gold, which is not enough to pay for the solution.

In addition, there is a lack of formal recycling enterprises. At present, the research results such as "gold sponge" and "funnel alchemy" are only considered by some mining enterprises and large water treatment enterprises, and the supply of gold is naturally very limited.

Here is a warm reminder that without relevant chemical qualifications, both private and corporate alchemy are illegal!

More importantly, the process of extracting gold from waste water and circuit boards often produces more pollution, such as toxic gases, waste water containing toxic substances, etc., which directly endanger the health and environmental safety of operators. The amount of gold recovered is not enough to pollute the treatment cost, and the economic benefit is too low.

The legend of alchemy always attracts countless smart heads to find a way to break through. Although there are still many bottlenecks in technology and many influences such as social and environmental ethics, there is still a long way to go before gold becomes a "Chinese cabbage".

However, if we constantly explore the upper limit of technology within laws and regulations and tap the possibility of any available resources, the sprout of new technologies in human society may be among them.

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