Know About the Process of Extracting Gold Plants from Seawater
Dissolved in sea water the total quantity
of other precious metals and gold is incredible. It has been estimated that since
mining began about 6,000 years ago we have mined over 5 billion troy ounces of
gold.
By comparison, according to scientific
estimates the concentration of gold in seawater is in the region of 25 billion
troy ounces and as more gold comes out from the earth's mantle this quantity is
increasing constantly.
Collecting the gold by refurbished gold plants can be in many ways and underway a few
companies have trials. Basically refining the residue after distilling seawater
distillation would be one method.
As the energy required to boil off the water
is considerable, this is uneconomic though potentially a product of
desalination plants with added stages. Besides gold, to some degree in sea
water practically all naturally occurring elements are dissolved.
Literally there is now a more potentially
economic and exciting solution. There are cracks in the ocean floor into which
sea water penetrates in regions of the ocean bottom where the earth's tectonic
plates are separating.
Minerals dissolve in it and it is heated in
the earth's mantle. Through underwater fumaroles the mineral-loaded water
emerges, and building chimney-shaped structures the minerals are deposited.
Surviving in this apparently inhospitable
environment, where water pressure is as much as three hundred times that at the
surface and temperatures can reach over 200 degrees centigrade or more over
three hundred previously unknown species have been discovered by the scientists.
These species range from giant tube worms to bacteria to shrimp and limpets.
In the precipitation of the minerals which
build the chimneys - sulphur-oxidizing it is thought by the refurbished gold plants that bacteria
play important role.
Some observers have proposed that to
extract gold and other strategic or precious compounds and elements from the
sea genetically engineering these bacteria may be possible.
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