With The Help Of Amyloid Proteins It Is Possible To Purify Water And Extract Gold

in #steemstem7 years ago

We have by now read a lot about crypto mining and there are softwares and hardwares for mining them. While these are virtual currencies, the mining of the a real currency, Gold, is also profitable now due to technological advancements. Ever wonder gold mining, how it is done. Over the years, the process of mining valuable metals has been constantly changing, before everything was done manually, now this process is mechanized. Places where you can extract metal are diverse. But not everyone knows that gold in the water can also be found.

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Which water can contain gold?

Precious metal can be found in sewage, water, sea water and other types. The content of gold in water is small. Most of all minerals are found in ocean waters.

The bottom of the rivers consists of sedimentary deposits that lie on the bedrock, the so-called dam. On the flesh there are deposits that are washed off by streams of water. And also the streams can wash gold from the mountains. And since it is heavy, it settles on the bottom, where it is retained by rocks, sand, clay and other sedimentary deposits.

The greatest amount of gold is formed in deep water bodies or in places where the flow velocity slows down, as well as in places where there are large stones and boulders. Gold can be found in places where streams of the river go to the plain. Metal is deposited also where the river expands and the flow of the reservoir slows down. Previously, along the river, you could find nuggets that were thrown out by the flow of water after the erosion of the gold-bearing veins.

In the sea water precious metal was discovered at the beginning of the XIX century. But its extraction from the water did not spread so much. Gold particles are found on the sediments of rocks, are found in beach placers. Minerals fall into the water during the destruction of rocks, banks, forming placers. They settle down to a depth of five to fifty meters over hundreds of kilometers.

So how much gold sea can have? Answer is no one knows the exact amount of gold in the sea water. It is calculated that this is from about four to ten miligrams per ton.

In sewage and drainage water, gold comes from industrial facilities, from electronics plants, dentistry, jewelry shops. American scientists after research have established that the sewage system contains more gold metal than water bodies. Of these waters, no one extracts the metal, since it is unprofitable. But scientists are looking for a way to purify waste water and extract precious metal from there. It is possible that such methods will soon be found, and with their help it will be possible to drink environmentally friendly water and enrich the countries with precious metals extracted from the effluents.

In Japan, from the sewerage of the city of Suva, it was possible to obtain 2 kg of gold from each ton of ash. The ash was formed on the sewage filters and delayed, accumulated gold minerals discarded from industrial production.

Research and extraction of gold from reservoirs

There was much debate among researchers about how to get gold from water. It took a lot of effort and money to develop. Initially, they tried the method of production with pyrite. To do this, during the voyage from the ships towed bags filled with ore, believed that it attracts precious metal. Indeed, after returning from navigation in the ore, there was an increased content of gold particles.

Later the researcher Henry Ball proposed to extract gold minerals with quicklime. The stream of water got into the pool, mixed with limestone, then it was filtered, processed and drained back into the pond. The precipitate was treated with cyanidation. In order to build such a pool, you need to choose a location near the water currents, where there will be tides and outflows away from the population.

The German chemist Hubber, after much research, came to the conclusion that it is not profitable to receive gold from the water. Scientists suggested using sulfides for extraction (they thought gold particles would stick to them), mercury.

At the moment, gold from sea water is difficult and expensive, the process does not pay off. While scientists continue to research., to obtain gold from the river, various devices are used conventionally such as :

1. Mini dredges. This device sucks as a vacuum cleaner from the bottom of the river rock, while separating the metal from it. It consists of an engine, a floating system, an injector, a pump, a flushing chute. Mini-dredge has an air supply system that provides breathing under water. Small mini-dredges have a weight of 24 kilograms, and large ones - 90. They are used only for water bodies with a shallow depth.

2. The metal detector. This device allows you to search for places of gold accumulation.

3. Tray. This thing has always been in demand and useful. It is installed in the river, cleaned of galleys, gold particles sit on the bottom, then they are washed into the bowl. With the help of the tray you can take the gold for testing, if you find small particles, you can start searching.

4. A gold sampler. The device allows you to feel the presence of gold particles. The device has at one end a sensor device, on the second a handle with a control unit. It sticks into the ground, when there is gold, notifies with the sound signal, while the light comes on.

Gold in the water is available. From the river and shallow water bodies, we learned how to extract. In order to get a valuable metal from sea water, you need to develop ways that would be cost-effective. The same happens with runoff water. Researchers are looking for methods that will allow to purify water, filter it and extract gold from there. One of new development is using amyloid proteins to purify as well as extracting out gold.

By means of amyloid proteins, it is possible to effectively purify water that is contaminated with heavy metals and also to extract gold. It is noteworthy that these proteins have a structure similar to protein formations that are the cause of Alzheimer's disease. Swiss scientists have completed work on creating a filter, which uses amyloid proteins to purify water from the use of heavy metals, as well as dangerous radioactive particles. It is worth noting that the amount of toxic substances that can absorb these protein membranes can significantly exceed their own weight. In the framework of this experiment, proteins were used for the first time in order to filter water.

The material for creating such a filter was synthesized from milk, transforming the proteins present in it into fibers containing amyloid protein. By their chemical composition, they are pretty much like protein formations that are formed in large numbers in the brain of people suffering from Alzheimer's disease.

Purification of water with proteins

The main feature of amyloid proteins is that they have snapping "tentacles". It is to this their peculiarity that researchers drew attention to the stage of creating an innovative type of filters for fine water purification. Within the framework of the prepared report, the scientists emphasized that their filter from porous carbon and amyloids was able to purify the water from 99.9% of the toxins present in it, which were used to simulate a strong contamination of the liquid. The filter works largely because of the possibility of amyloids to attract particles of lead and mercury.

It is noteworthy that the innovative water filter does not pass through radioactive particles, as well as pollutants, and this greatly surprised the researchers. For example, the oxide of gold can later be decomposed to gold, since for this it will only be necessary to rid it of oxygen molecules. In the course of the experiment, scientists were able to notice that a membrane of 6 milligrams of amyloid proteins was able to absorb about 100 milligrams of gold inside itself. The researchers were amazed by the fact that amyloids are able to attract particles, whose weight is several times greater than their own. Most of the materials that are currently used to make filters can absorb toxins with a total mass not exceeding their own weight.

Pure water

There are a lot of applications for the technology developed, for example, this type of protein filters can be used in large water treatment plants, as well as at home. Scientists have calculated that it follows that cleaning 1,000 liters of water with the condition of using their technology will cost only $ 1, and if you use this filter to extract valuable metals, it will be able to recoup its value hundreds of thousands of times. The filter has an extremely simple design and can be quickly adjusted for optimal water purification or the selection of metals from different groups. It is worth noting that although the innovative technology has not yet been tested in real conditions, it has a great potential in future.



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great post bro thanks for knowledgeable post on science.☺

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