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RE: Are you really an anarchist or anarcho-capitalist? Prepare to be offended!
Umm, the linked paper looked to me like it described a process for functionalizing synthetic nanomaterials. And there is a finite amount of gold in electronics - a new chemical won't get more gold out of a chip than is contained in the chip. So ... are you joking, or am I just totally stupid?
@mada
You're right you can't get more gold than is in the chip.
However the current methods of extraction are extremely lossy and they require the addition of toxic / heavy metals such as lead and arsenic in order to catalyze the reactions.
What you're missing is the losses from the extraction process and these losses are as high as 50%.
This method uses a process that is more highly selective for the precious metals (more than just gold) and thus, far less is lost. Hence a higher extraction rate. An increase of 20%.
As I mentioned before, they are being obtuse on the chemicals used and the processes involved. This is usually a sign that they are seeking to license the technology rather than release it. If it's patented & licensed then it won't be available for general use for up to 25 years.
That's what people should be upset about. This was paid for with tax dollars, used open source tools and as far as I can tell they also used an open computing network to find the process to create this "synthetic nanomaterial" which is just a fancy way of saying a designer molecule.
Now they want to charge us to utilize this information for the next quarter century. That ought to make you mad. Yet this is the norm.
Interesting - good find if that's the case. Truth is, I don't know that it's possible for me to be any less thrilled with the science journals than I am already. Following you, and looking forward to seeing more on this.