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Extracting Gold From Seawater

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Extracting Gold From Seawater

 


Amazing Right? Yes, in fact it is possible. The total amount of gold and other precious metals dissolved in seawater is truly incredible. 

It has been estimated that we have mined more than 5 billion troy ounces of gold since mining began some 6,000 years ago. 

By comparison, the concentration of gold in seawater is, according to scientific estimates, that the oceans contain about 25 billion troy ounces, and that this amount is constantly increasing as more gold leaves the earth's mantle.

There are several ways to collect this gold, and some companies have trials underway. Distillation would be one method: basically distilling seawater and refining the residue. 

This is uneconomical as the energy required to boil the water is considerable, although potentially a product of desalination plants with additional stages. Besides gold, practically all natural elements dissolve in seawater, to some extent.

Now there is a more exciting and potentially inexpensive solution, literally. In the regions of the ocean floor where the earth's tectonic plates are pulling apart (you may have heard of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and continental drift, for example), there are cracks in the ocean floor that it penetrates sea ​​water.

 It is heated in the earth's mantle (these mid-ocean elevations are made of warm soft rock) and minerals dissolve in it. Mineral-laden water emerges through underwater vents, and minerals are deposited, which build chimney-shaped structures.

Scientists have discovered more than three hundred previously unknown species that survive in this seemingly inhospitable environment, where temperatures can reach more than 200 degrees Celsius or more and water pressure is up to three hundred times greater than at the surface. These species range from bacteria to limpets, shrimp, and giant tube worms.

Bacteria (also known as Extremophiles) are believed to play an important role in the precipitation of the minerals that form the chimneys; Sulfur oxidizing bacteria of the Beggiatoa, Thiothrix or Thiovulum genera may be involved in this process.

Some observers have proposed that it might be possible to genetically manipulate these bacteria to extract gold and other precious or strategic elements and compounds from the sea. Bacteria have already been engineered to devour crude oil, so why not gold?

Of course, it will be the economy that drives this. Some mining companies are already developing bacteria to help further refine low-content gold ore waste produced in traditional gold mining (biooxidation) operations.

Recent difficulties in the world economy, and even talk of a return to the gold standard, may result in a continuous rise in gold prices (they have been rising steadily for many years), probably for at least ten years, and this most likely it will happen. tilt the economic balance of gold mining and refining towards even more marginal methods.

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