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#heavymetals — Public Fediverse posts

Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #heavymetals, aggregated by home.social.

  1. #GoldExtraction from #EWaste gets 10 times more efficient with new sponge material

    Researchers developed a nanoscale cross-dimensional composite material via self-assembly of two-dimensional graphene oxide and one-dimensional chitosan macromolecules.

    By Prabhat Ranjan Mishra, Oct 27, 2024

    "Researchers have developed a new type of material that’s 10 times more efficient at extracting gold from e-waste than previous adsorbents. Developed by chemists and materials scientists at the National University of Singapore, the material is a type of sponge made of #GrapheneOxide and #chitosan [shrimp shells].

    "The material can reportedly transform the way gold is extracted from electronic wastes, which has been described so far as a dirty business with low yields and results in toxic #pollutants.

    "The cheaper, cleaner and efficient method was tested by researchers using real e-waste provided by a recycling company."

    [...]

    "While the present work focused on gold, the team say the technique could be adapted to recover other valuable metals such as #silver, #platinum or #palladium from #ElectronicWaste or even #mining residues. And that is not all: as well as e-waste, the technology might be applied to a wider range of environmental cleaning efforts, such as filtering out #HeavyMetals from #PollutedWater sources or industrial effluents, reported Physics World."

    Read more:
    interestingengineering.com/inn


    Article in Physics World - Eco-friendly graphene composite recovers gold from e-waste

    24 Oct 2024

    physicsworld.com/a/eco-friendl

    #SolarPunkSunday #NoGoldMining
    #EWasteRecycling #MetalsExtraction #Electronics #RareEarthMinerals #Recycling #NewTechnology #ShrimpShells

  2. Down on the Farm That Harvests Metal From Plants [phytomining]
    --
    nytimes.com/2020/02/26/science <-- shared media article
    --
    [I know that the USGS has some direct research ongoing in this regard; bioremediation has been around for a long time, in a sense this is a natural extension (pun very much intended)]
    #farming #mining #phytomining #tailings #bioremediation #geology #mining #mininggeology #minerals #nickel #plants #vegetation #smelter #accumulating #biology #flora #agromining #metals #heavymetals #biomass #hyperaccumulators #bioore #naturalresources #minerals

  3. Bristly Beard Lichen (Friday Fellow by Earthling Nature) earthlingnature.wordpress.com/ #lichens #fungi

    The #BristlyBeardLichen is very sensitive to #AirPollution, especially to #SulfurDioxide and nitrogen compounds. It has also shown the ability to bioaccumulate #HeavyMetals in its tissues. As a result, more recent studies are trying to turn it into a model species for #BioMonitoring of air #pollution.