Reinventing copper extraction with electricity
Friday, May 2, 2014 - 08:01
in Physics & Chemistry
Copper is so valuable that its theft from worksites and power substations has become a national problem. Replacing the lost copper with new metal produced by the traditional method of cooking copper sulfide ores requires a multistep process to extract the copper and produces troublesome byproducts. Antoine Allanore, the Thomas B. King Assistant Professor of Metallurgy at MIT, wants to simplify copper extraction and eliminate noxious byproducts through electrolysis.