this post was submitted on 13 Oct 2023
366 points (98.7% liked)
Technology
59235 readers
3726 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Step 1. Get A LOT of sulphuric acid
Step 2. Get some large vats, and a metal recovery unit
Step 3. Add waste + sulphuric acid
Step 4. Collect leachate and precipitate metal
Step 5. Profit
This is basically the process used for a lot of historical mines or mines with low grade ore, except they didn't use vats back then, but a constructed pad, with leachate collection.
Done at scale is this process producing a lot of toxic gases and waste chemicals?
(I think you can tell I have no idea what I'm talking about here, I'm genuinely curious)
Yeah, it's not environmentally friendly, that's for sure.
Most of the issue with mining though, come from exposing buried rock to the atmosphere, or from the tailings (crushed, processed rock)