There’s been a discovery of a new species of “metal-munching” plant that has the possibility of radically changing how we go about mining for metals. Or at least, how we go about mining for certain metals. We’ve long known that certain plants concentrate certain metals in their tissues: for example, that coal has elevated levels of germanium in it is simply the result of the fact that those plant tissues the coal was made from contained Ge. But this latest finding concentrates metals, in this case nickel, to such an extent that it could radically change the way that we go mining for certain metals.
A report is here and this is the most amazing line:
“Professor Fernando said that the Rinorea niccolifera’s leaves can take in up to 18,000 parts per million of nickel. This is a thousand times more than what any other known plant species can safely absorb.”
It’s that thousand times which is the astonishing part. And it’s so astonishing that it completely changes the economics of the matter.
18,000 ppm is also known as 1.8%. So, for one tonne of the leaves of this plant we would have 18 kilogrammes of nickel contained. Well, OK, we would if it had been growing on highly nickel contaminated soil. The importance of this is that those leaves would then be a richer source of nickel that the nickel laterite ores which are expected to be our major source in the centuries to come. These usually grade at around 1 to 1.5% Ni.
So our plant, just growing as it wishes to, is concentrating Ni above the sort of level that we’re prepared to dig rock out of the ground to get. And, given that it is in a leaf rather than in rock it’s going to be a lot easier to get out too. Just harvesting the leaves and leaving them to dry will concentrate further, a controlled burning of that dried material further and so on.
And one of the great truths of the mining industry is that the cost of extraction from an ore is more than directly proportional to the concentration of the target metal in the ore. The greater the concentration the less per unit of metal extracted that extraction is going to cost. So, extraction from plants that concentrate to higher than the usual ore level, which are themselves easy to concentrate further, is going to reduce mining costs substantially.
For the rest of this article, click here: http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2014/05/13/the-astonishing-nickel-eating-plant-that-could-radically-change-mining/