The search for the philosopher’s stone became for centuries a mysterious question surrounding alchemy. It was thought to be the solution to convert almost any element into gold, however, there is no substance capable of achieving this goal, but there are some that come close. Scientists believe they have found a kind of philosopher’s stone in graphene, which is capable of extracting gold from any compound.
The philosopher’s stone of chemistry
An international research team comprising members of the universities of Manchester, Tsinghua, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences has shown that graphene behaves in a sense like a philosopher’s stone since it allows the extraction of gold from waste containing minimal amounts of the precious metal.
Apparently, the process is relatively simple, just add graphene to a solution containing traces of gold and after a few minutes, pure gold will appear on the graphene sheets. The most interesting thing about the process is that the gold appears in a pure form without the presence of other chemical elements, nor the contribution of energies involved. Then all that is required is to burn the graphene sheets to obtain the extraction of the metal.
According to research published in Nature Communications, 1 gram of graphene is enough to obtain 2 grams of gold from a mixture of different compounds. And while it sounds like a magical process, the reality is that it is essentially a simple electrochemical process. Dr. Yang Su of Tsinghua University, who was in charge of the research, explains that “the unique interactions between graphene and gold ions drive the process and also produce exceptional selectivity. Only gold is extracted without any other ions or salts.”
Why is it an important discovery?
Although the mere mention of gold brings to mind a functionality that is more aesthetic and valuable than productive, today gold is used in many industries. Mainly the development of mobile devices electronics, laptops, and other devices, make use of this metal. And like all other industries, electronics brings with it its own waste issues.
Once the devices have become obsolete due to technological advances, they are discarded without reusing their components. In this sense, great resources are wasted and, on the contrary, they pollute the environment. For this reason, the use of graphene is of great importance, since, as Nobel Prize winner Andre Geim and co-author of the research says, “graphene turns garbage into gold”.
“Our findings not only hold promise for making this part of the economy more sustainable but also emphasize how different atomically thin materials can be from their primary structure, well-known bulk materials,” he added. “Graphite, for example, is useless for mining gold, while graphene almost constitutes the philosopher’s stone.”
Story originally published in Spanish in Ecoosfera
