Scientist accidentally discovers gold extraction method using cornstarch

Treasure

Thursday, 16 May 2013 09:59

By David Self Newlin

SALT LAKE CITY — Gold may be beautiful, elegant, and extremely valuable, but the process for extracting it is nasty, poisonous, expensive and inefficient.

But science is full of serendipity, moments of accidental discovery like finding penicillin hiding in plain sight in a petri dish. Zhichang Liu, a post doctorate at Northwestern University, had just such a moment in the lab when he accidentally discovered a new method for extracting gold in a totally green way.

Liu was intending to build nanocubes to store gasses and large molecules. But what he ended up getting when he mixed cornstarch, gold and a potassium-bromide compound was needles.

"Initially, I was disappointed when my experiment didn't produce cubes, but when I saw the needles, I got excited," Liu said. "I wanted to learn more about the composition of these needles."

It turns out, the needles were composed of gold nanowires, leading to the possibility that the process could be repeated, scaled up and produce a method for extracting gold that is cheap, effective and non-toxic. And it is very specific for gold, excluding other chemically similar elements like platinum and palladium.

Currently, gold is extracted using extremely poisonous cyanide salts and gasses. It leaves behind difficult-to-clean waste that stays in the environment for quite some time.

However, Liu's new method uses alpha-cyclodextrin, a cyclic sugar with six glucose molecules. That, plus the potassium-bromine compound, are easy to clean. It can extract gold from raw sources or from gold scraps, meaning it could find a use in recycling consumer electronics.

"The elimination of cyanide from the gold industry is of the utmost importance environmentally," said Sir Fraser Stoddart, the Board of Trustees Professor of Chemistry in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. "We have replaced nasty reagents with a cheap, biologically friendly material derived from starch."

Courtesy: KSL TV

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Blue Water Ventures International Launches Phase II of Business Model

Treasure

Thursday, 16 May 2013 08:56

JACKSONVILLE, Fla., May 9, 2013 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Blue Water Ventures International, Inc. (the "Company") (OTCBB:BWVI) today announced the long awaited launch of Phase II of its operations and plans for its 2013 season exploration of shipwrecks on the east coast of Florida and several sites in Central America. Additionally, the Company is exploring the feasibility of additional projects in Caribbean waters, including the Bahamas and Dominican Republic. The Company is currently acquiring additional vessels and has assembled skilled crews to pursue these projects. Its mission is to locate and recover artifacts and treasure from historic sunken ships, whose cargos offer vast material, intellectual, and social rewards.

About Blue Water Ventures International

BWVI is a historic shipwreck research and recovery company that locates and recovers lost treasures dated from pre-colonial times to our recent past. During Phase I of its operations, it has recovered historical treasure and artifacts from the 1622 Spanish fleet carried by the galleon Nuestra Santa Margarita, that succumbed to hurricane force winds off the coast of Key West, Florida. The Company located treasure from the Santa Margarita using state of the art technology and recovered an estimated $16 million in gold, silver and natural pearls along its widely dispersed shipwreck trail. After splitting the treasure with its joint venture partner, the Company values its portion of this treasure at $6+ million.

CEO, Keith Webb stated that becoming a publicly traded company and the combined aspects of a successful 2013 dive season is exactly what we at BWVI have envisioned.

A portion of the Margarita treasure can be viewed at our website: www.BWVINT.com.

More Ancient Ruins Destroyed

Archaeological

Wednesday, 15 May 2013 14:42

Since this past Saturday, TreasureWorks.com has been reporting on the unconscionable destruction of the Mayan Temple Noh Mul, located in northern Belize. Then you start hearing reports from archaeologists in the field that this is a fairly common event in Belize. Well, just when you thought that you had heard the worst about the loss of irreplaceable historic cultural assets.

Earlier today I was contacted by Archaeologist Gary Ziegler who has been working down in Peru with yet another story concerning the destruction of ancient ruins.

By Gary Ziegler

Objectives:

1) Revisit Machu Picchu to evaluate new Ministry of Culture policies in place, the current effect of tourism and obtain additional photography for the Ziegler Malville book focusing on Inca astronomy, symbolism and sacred geography to be published in September.

2) Revisit Choquequirao and associated Inca sites. Collect additional data and photography for the book. Evaluate access routes and effects of increased tourism.

The Team: Steve Bein, Lillian Roberts, Joy Collins, Ken Mick, Ken Greenwood, Amanda Stouffer, Edwin Duenas, Paolo Greer, Gary Ziegler.

Read more: More Ancient Ruins Destroyed