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Extracting gold from plants · Hydroponics Daily

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  Hi, welcome back to Hydroponics Daily with me, Dr. Russell Sharp.
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  There's an interesting story about a guy called Fritz Harbour.
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  And you may have heard of Fritz Harbour.
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  He is the man who invented the Harbour-Bosch process, which is how we get nitrogen fertilizer.
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  And because of him, it's thought that billions of people were saved from starvation
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  through the 20th century.
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  But Fritz Haber has a checkered
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  past to say the least so he also
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  invented the the chemical weapons that
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  were used in the first world war he was a German
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  scientist and a lot of his research was
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  to do with killing people with the by-product being
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  that he actually invented a way of saving people's lives
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  and the story
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  I want to tell you today about him is his involvement at
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  the end of the first world war when he the
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  the germans were signing the peace agreement
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  and they basically agreed to really really
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  harsh financial penalties because he
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  said look guys i've invented this way of getting gold out of seawater so the
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  german nation is going to be absolutely minted in a few years time so just just
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  agree to whatever those guys want because we're going to be rolling in it because
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  I can extract gold from seawater.
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  Well, he was partially right and you could extract gold from seawater,
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  but his calculations were something like a thousandfold out.
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  So it was never, ever going to be economical to extract gold from seawater.
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  That's why we still dig up the Amazon rainforest and the outback in Australia to get gold.
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  But the reason I mention him is because gold can be extracted from unusual water.
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  Locations and sources and one of those is plants and
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  they this is not just you know
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  experimental there are actually companies looking into
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  this and that's because certain plants are what
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  we term hyper accumulators and they
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  can absorb very high levels
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  of certain metals compared to other plants now to be classed as a hyper accumulator
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  they have to be able to absorb a gram per kilogram of or even up to 10 grams
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  per kilogram of a metal so a lot of the plants that do this are already.
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  Already adapted and evolved to live in harsh conditions
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  where these these metals are but not all of them and
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  it's thought they've evolved this this reason this
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  this mechanism for a couple of reasons one is that if these
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  metals are poisonous then any
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  herbivores will be poisoned by eating the plants that's
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  one hypothesis and the other is that they
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  they move the the metals out
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  of the soil to so they're not toxic
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  to them so things like nickel chromium copper
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  all the things that's in nasty fertilizers and pesticides that you shouldn't
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  be applying to your crops but also gold and gold is very very poorly soluble
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  it's probably going to be as a as a micro suspension or something like this
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  but gold can accumulate in certain plants and.
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  Certain examples include the American perennial silky phacelia,
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  which is a, phacelia is a cover crop in the UK, so it's planted by arable farmers.
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  Another one's Indian mustard, again, another plant that's used as a cover crop,
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  Brassica junkia, and they both accumulate gold.
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  And that can vary from, you know, up to one microgram per gram or 60 micrograms per gram.
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  And they scientists have also found that you
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  can increase the gold that's accumulated in
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  the plant by applying other chemicals that help with this
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  with the solubilization and and getting
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  gold out of soil and rocks and such as ammonium thiocyanate
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  so it's a compound that's used commonly in
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  mining operations already to increase the recovery of gold another plant
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  that also accumulates gold is common alder or
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  alnus glutinosa alder is a is a
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  british native tree here i think it's also native to the
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  u.s or the certain will be species it's an unusual plant
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  it's a it's a pioneer tree species it's
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  one of the first to to colonize land after disturbance or when a glacier retreats
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  and things like that there's not many glaciers here in the uk but maybe in america
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  maybe in alaska and it has specialist bacteria in its roots that can absorb
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  nitrogen and fix nitrogen.
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  It's very interesting, alder, because these are not the same bacteria that fix
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  nitrogen in beans and peas.
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  So alder can bioaccumulate gold as well.
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  So scientists have been looking at this just because it's interesting scientifically,
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  but also because there could be commercial exploitation of this.
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  Obviously if you plant a plant you can then harvest it and then you just burn
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  it and that accumulates the the precious metal whether that's gold or something
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  else you know it might be something for,
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  batteries battery metals are very important now like lithium nickel
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  copper so you could burn it and then
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  increase the concentration and then further the extraction of
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  those of those metals and so you're not removing rock
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  from from the area you're not disturbing the
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  ground so much so it could be a more environmentally friendly way
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  of mining soils so that's one option and
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  then the other option is that you then use the plants the
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  native plants that are known to accumulate certain metals
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  as indicators of where you should
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  test for new mining operations so a
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  number of them the mining companies employ botanists and
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  these you know botanists go off and and
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  study the the flora of certain
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  regions maybe in canada or australia and then they'll say you know this one
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  very high for uranium and so then they'll test for uranium in the rocks and
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  things like this so botanists can find themselves doing dirty deeds just like
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  geologists you think they go to university to study rocks and they end up working
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  for oil petrochemical companies and oil companies.
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  So there are a few companies out there that are are looking into it i did a
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  quick research here just to update my knowledge on this subject there's a company
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  called fiona based in the uk,
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  and they do a lot of research it seems to be a spin out from brunel
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  university who are a big engineering university here in
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  the uk they've been looking at nickel and gold extraction
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  but and they've done a few research grants and stuff
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  but the company does seem to be very much at the early still
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  at the very early spin-out stage i've looked
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  on company's house and just just
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  ticking over really not really much going on there so watch this space why am
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  i talking about on hydroponics daily i think it could be of interest you know
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  could could there be a hydroponic angle could you could you feed in gold rich
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  or could you use it as to clean up,
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  gold mining effluent. There's a big problem with.
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  The runoff into the streams from mining sites, poisoning the local environment.
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  Things like mercury is a big problem with mining operations.
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  In the Amazon, especially, there's lots of mercury poisoning.
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  So could we look at further improving the extraction of gold by some sort of
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  hydroponic option in the system?
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  It lends itself in there because you can control the root zone really well.
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  You can you can adjust the the metals
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  and the nutrients in the nutrient system you could
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  put in you know and a form of
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  gold that can't be extracted and maybe get one out i don't know but i
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  think hydroquonics has an option here i mean plants can exude
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  all sorts of chelates and acids and things
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  like this and if they're not doing it the mycorrhizae can also do it as well so
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  that's something to think about it's not a solution it's not something
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  i can offer you that you're going to get rich quick my gold
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  from plants method but certainly something to think about and think of some
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  ideas you might have something you might this might have you know sparked an
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  idea in somebody's head hopefully and then if it does and you get rich then
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  you know send a bit of money my way uh thank you very much for today that's
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  been hydroponics daily and i'll see you again tomorrow.