蘑菇可以从你的旧手机里掘出黄金-科技频道-金鱼财经网

新华网4月15日电 据科技博客网站Gizmodo报道，砸开旧手机，你会发现很多电路，当然也不乏贵金属。“十万只手机里估计有2.4千克黄金，900多千克铜，25千克白银，或者比这还多。”科技网站Motherboard报道称。那么，可不可以通过菌类，安全廉价地回收贵金属呢？

从老旧的电子产品回收黄金利润可观，却并不容易。在欧美国家，需要用到有毒的化学制剂，比如硫酸跟氰化物来溶解贵金属。发展中国家遍布电子垃圾，露天焚烧释放出大量有毒气体。

相较而言，菌类是比较温和的黄金清道夫。芬兰国家技术研究中心的科学家发现一种方法，可以用菌丝制成的生物材料滤出黄金，菌丝是菌类植物在地下的部分。首先要将旧手机碾碎成粉末。这些粉末会经菌丝筛选过滤，但黄金会被吸附。研究者称，这种方法可回收80%的黄金，而常用的、利用有毒化学制剂的方法只能回收10%到20%。

经过调整，菌丝体丛还可以从电子垃圾里回收其他贵金属。事实上，这种想法，即真菌修复，完全是旧瓶装新酒。作为一种天然的分解者，菌类很善于分解物体，比如石油泄漏的黏腻物质。它们还可以在成长过程中吸收有毒的重金属，比如铅。这么看来，菌类似乎要统治世界了。或者，它们已经做到了这一点。

译者：王俊景

Mushrooms Can Mine the Gold From Your Old Cellphones

Crack open your dumb old phone, and you"ll find lots of circuits and no lack of precious metals. "In 100,000 cell phones, it"s estimated that there is 2.4 kilograms of gold, more than 900 kilograms of copper, 25 kilograms of silver, and more," according to Motherboard. Could a safer and and cheaper method of recovering that metal come by way of fungi?

Recovering gold from old electronics is profitable but not pretty. In Europe and the U.S., it requires the use of toxic chemicals like sulfuric acid and cyanide to dissolve out the precious metals. In developing countries where much of our e-waste is now sent, open-air burning releases toxic fumes.

Fungi, in comparison, are a gentler scavenger of gold. Finnish scientists at the VTT Technical Research Centre have figured out a way to filter out gold with biomats made of mycelium, the part of a fungi that lives underground. The first step is crushing the old phones into a fine powder. That powder is sieved and passed through the mycelium, which was chemically engineered to attract gold. The researchers say this process recovers 80 percent of the gold, compared to just 10 or 20 percent in the common but toxic chemical processes.

Tweaking the process for making the mycelium mats could allow them to recover other precious metals in e-waste. In fact, this is all a new twist old idea: mycoremediation. As natural decomposers, fungi are fantastic at breaking things down, like the goopy stuff from oil spills. And they can absorb toxic heavy metals, like lead, as they grow. Fungi seem poised to take over the world. Oh wait, they already have. [EE Times via Motherboard]