An environmentally friendly way to process gold

Scientists at Northwestern University have found a green way to process gold. — photos.com photo

Some amazing new research has come out of Northwestern University in Illinois. A team of scientists there have discovered an inexpensive and environmentally safe way to isolate gold from raw materials.

Basically, the scientists have found that they can use simple cornstarch, instead of cyanide, to do so. It extracts the gold and leaves behind other metals that are often found in crude gold. They say the same process can also be used to extract gold from electronic waste.

"The elimination of cyanide from the gold industry is of the utmost importance environmentally," said Sir Fraser Stoddart, the Board of Trustees Professor of Chemistry in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. "We have replaced nasty reagents with a cheap, biologically friendly material derived from starch."

Sir Fraser's team discovered the process by accident, using simple test tube chemistry. A series of rigorous follow-up investigations provided evidence for the competitive strength of the new procedure.

You can read the full article by Northwestern University to find out more about this new "green gold."