New Gold Extraction Method Using Whey

What's up frens?!

I took a small break from posting, to chill and empty my head ^_^

Anyways, I am back today to share an interesting recent science development. This is something my wife sent me as she knows I am into gold and silver and shit.

So, it looks like researchers from Zurich have come with a new method to extract gold with ewaste. As you might know, current methods to take gold out from electronics are a bit of a hassle. Too expensive, too many super dangerous chemicals etc etc.

The new method that was announced late on this February is reportedly much, much safer and cheaper. Specifically, the extraction costs about 50 times less than the value of the gold that can be recovered.

How It Works

Now I am not tech savvy enough to fully understand the published paper so here's a quick run down from the press release. I will leave links for both at the end of post:

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The researchers denatured whey proteins under acidic conditions and high temperatures, so that they aggregated into protein nanofibrils in a gel.

The scientists then dried the gel, creating a sponge out of these protein fibrils.

To recover gold in the laboratory experiment, the team salvaged the electronic motherboards from 20 old computer motherboards and extracted the metal parts.

They dissolved these parts in an acid bath so as to ionise the metals.

When they placed the protein fibre sponge in the metal ion solution, the gold ions adhered to the protein fibres.

As the next step, the researchers heated the sponge. This reduced the gold ions into flakes, which the scientists subsequently melted down into a gold nugget.

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Yeah, I don't get it but sounds cool 😎 🙃

Using the exact method described above the researchers created a small gold nugget of 20 miligrams, extracted of 20 computer motherboards. The nugget was 91 % pure gold, or about 22k carats. Not bad!

As I aforementioned, the researchers claim this is commercially viable method that has the potential to change how we extract gold and other metals from ewaste.

Life cycle assessment and techno–economic analysis of the process finally consolidate the potential of protein nanofibril aerogels from food side-streams as an environmentally friendly and economically viable approach for gold recovery from e-waste.

Well that's something we have heard quite a few times in the past so... We will see I guess 🙈

Anyways, the post needs a thumbnail so here's me taking a goldback out for some drinks and food 🥂

References & Further Reading

• ScienceDaily
• Gold Recovery from E-Waste by Food-Waste Amyloid Aerogels

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