Graphene enables highly efficient and selective extraction of gold

Scientists from The University of Manchester, Tsinghua University in China and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) recently reported that graphene can facilitate gold extraction from waste containing only trace amounts of gold (down to billionth of a percent).

This surprising application of graphene was described to work quite straightforwardly: add graphene into a solution containing traces of gold and, after a few minutes, pure gold appears on graphene sheets, with no other chemicals or energy input involved. After this you can extract your pure gold by simply burning the graphene off. The research shows that 1 gram of graphene can be sufficient for extracting nearly 2 grams of gold.