How Russian Academy of Sciences’ Far East will make Gold from Coal Waste

“We burn a ton – we gain 1,500 rubles,”

CEO of Complex Innovative Technologies of the Amur Scientific Center, Oleg Ageev, in a press statement on extracting Gold from Coal

Gold can be made from coal....sort of.

The Russian Academy of Sciences’ Far East in partnership with the Complex Innovative Technologies of the Amur Scientific Center has discovered that by filtering Coal, they can extract Gold dust as reported in the article “Modern alchemy: Russian scientists discover how to extract Gold from Coal”, Published 22 Nov, 2016, RT.

This is based on almost fifteen (15) years into research into Coal that has traces of Gold. The scientists will test the Gold extraction equipment using the Coal waste from the Amur region’s boiler houses in 2017. With a grant in the pipeline, they plan to commercialize the process.

This is very similar to Jamaica extraction of Rare Earth metals from Red Mud from the Bauxite mining process which is patented and now on hold as explained in my blog article entitled “Paulwell’s update on Jamaica’s Rare Earth Metal Project – Patenting Red Mud Extraction as Aussies coming suggests Market rebound”. 

So how exactly does one extract Gold from Coal.

How to extract Goal from Coal Waste - Air Cyclone, Water Cyclone for nanoparticles of Gold

For one it isn't alchemy; Coal isn’t converted into Gold, albeit under high pressure it can be turned into diamonds.

To create the Gold, a ton of Coal is burned to create a thick smoke that contains the Gold in a vapour. That vapour is then put into a cyclone or centrifuge causing the heavier cold smoke particles to settle out.

Thos heavier particles are then flushed using pure distilled water and a liquid cyclone is used to separate out the heavier particles of Gold in a repetitive multi-stage purification process. This use of cyclones and purified water means that the electricity use is minimal and uses the specific gravity of the Gold instead of any chemical extraction techniques, making the technique potentially applicable to other forms of dissolved Gold.

The project is on hold until the spring, as sub-zero temperatures will make the water used in the liquid cyclone filtering process freeze. However, when spring comes around in 2017, process is expected to yield 0.5 grams, worth US$23 (1,500 rubles) per ton of Coal burned.

Given the amount of abandoned Coal waste in the Amur region’s boiler houses, they can potentially make tones of Gold, once the process is solar, wind or hydroelectric powered, making it very cost-efficient, to quote the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Far East: “We plan to use municipal boiler houses to implement our filtering system because they burn about eight to 10 thousand tons in a season, and that’s potentially 10 kilos of Gold.”.

That's a lot of golf from waste that can be used in making electronics and even Gold medals as the Japanese have been doing as noted in the article “Tokyo 2020 to Use Recycled Gold in Medals”, published 19 November 2016, Nippon.

So the potential if nano-particulate mining of Gold using centrifuges is literally worth the wait (weight?) in Gold!