A truly unique technology: Growing trees to harvest... gold.

Chris Anderson, a New Zealand scientist, has just published a bizarre gold-finding technique that uses plants to extract precious gold particles from the soil.

Scientists have long observed that certain plants are capable of extracting and synthesizing metals from the soil, such as nickel, cadmium, and zinc. These plants absorb liquids containing these metals through their roots and transport them to their stems and leaves. This method has been used in the environmental field to clean up areas contaminated with metals.

Regarding gold, things are much more difficult because gold does not dissolve easily in water for plants to absorb.

However, Chris Anderson, a geochemist and environmental scientist at Massey University in New Zealand, recently found a way to solve this problem. "Under certain chemical conditions, gold can be dissolved into a liquid," Chris Anderson explained.

Furthermore, Anderson discovered a method to extract this amount of gold from plants for collection and use.

To extract gold, people would proceed as follows: They would plant fast-growing, wide-spreading plants such as rapeseed, sunflowers, and tobacco in areas containing gold. The most advantageous locations are already exploited gold mines, as it's impossible to extract 100% of the gold from any mine.

When the trees are large enough, they use special chemicals to dissolve the gold in the soil, allowing the trees to absorb the liquid containing gold nanoparticles. Next, they use scientific methods to collect the gold, mainly by burning it.

“Extracting gold from different trees requires different methods. When the tree is burned to ash, gold particles can stick to the ash, some even disappearing completely. Therefore, burning and processing the ash is a complex problem. It requires the use of a very strong acid,” Anderson said.

It is known that gold in nano form holds great promise for use in the chemical industry, especially as a catalyst for many chemical reactions. Furthermore, gold extraction using this method also contributes to minimizing environmental pollution at gold mines because, in addition to absorbing gold, plants also absorb several substances that are very harmful to humans, such as mercury, arsenic, and copper.

"This is the perfect method because it can both collect gold and help detoxify the soil," said Anderson.

This scientist is currently working with several partners to conduct further research on this unique gold extraction method at a traditional gold mine in Indonesia.

According to danviet - LY