New technology mines gold assets from industrial waste water

New technology mines gold assets from industrial waste water

November 1, 2012 174 view(s)
(November 1, 2012) - Since ancient times, man has sought to find a way to make gold without going through the mining and refining process first, but creating gold assets from lead or other substances has mostly proven to be impossible. However, a new startup company in Saint Pierre Les Nemours, France is hoping to change that with breakthrough technology that is intended to help take precious metals out of otherwise worthless industrial waste water. Since it is in the early stages there are no promises being made that it will rock the gold market with its invention, but the magic of alchemy seems to be alive and well with great potential to do incredible things in the years to come. According to a recent article in The Raw Story, the company bringing this technology to the world is Magpie Polymers and it is located just 50 miles from the French capital of Paris. The technique being used by Magpie Polymers to extract gold assets from the waste water of industrial facilities was actually developed five years ago at a widely respected French school called Ecole Polytechnique. Today, there is not yet bullion or other products on the gold market produced this way, but there could one day be if the startup takes off the way that many believe it will. The process uses a patented form of plastic resin to create tiny beats which are then made into a filter that will pull particles of precious metals from the discarded factory water. The beads are able to target platinum, gold, palladium and even rhodium successfully, stripping them from the liquid a little bit at a time. It takes just one liter of the beads to sift the desired metals from up to 10 cubic meters of water which will pull out 100 grams of the precious substances. The value of that sifting would be between close to $4,000 and over $6,000 alone. These are impressive earnings that are sure to attract more attention from investors. The new startup is the brainchild of Etienne Almoric from France and his partner, Steven van Zutphen of the Netherlands. Their company is recovering amounts of precious metals described as 'infinitesimal' using state of the art technology. The process itself is highly complex, utilizing incredible science and engineering knowledge to get the job done. To try and describe the magnitude of what Magpie Polymers is working to do, van Zutphen said, "It’s the equivalent of a sugar lump in an Olympic swimming pool." The reason it is possible to pull gold, platinum and other of the world's most valuable materials from industrial waste water like this is because these metals are used in so many different products. Investors will know that right now, prices on hard assets like gold, platinum and palladium are quite high, so recovering them is a more profitable endeavor. The market for what Magpie Polymer can do is currently restricted to companies looking to recover precious metals, but one day it may also be used by mining companies to recover valuable elements from mined ore. Thanks to the high value of gold today, this technology's future looks bright.