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US 6,494,932 B1Granted
Recovery of natural nanoclusters and the nanoclusters isolated thereby
AssigneeBirch Mountain Resources, Ltd.
InventorHugh J. Abercrombie
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Abstract
Methods for recovery of naturally occurring nanoclusters are provided involving providing an aqueous nanocluster slurry and desorbing the nanoclusters from the surface of host substrate on which the nanoclusters are bound, followed by isolating the desorbed nanoclusters, and the isolated naturally occurring nanoclusters obtained thereby.
Claims58
A process for recovering naturally occurring nanoclusters, comprising:
- providing an aqeuous nanocluster slurry from a nanocluster bearing geologic source material comprising naturally occurring nanoclusters and a geologic host substrate;
- desorbing said naturally occurring nanoclusters from said geologic host substrate using a mixture comprising water and a reagent capable of separating said naturally occurring nanoclusters from said geologic host substrate;
- separating and recovering an aqueous nanocluster colloid solution formed by the desorbing step, by one or more processes selected from the group consisting of gravity settling, centrifugation and filtration to form a separated aqueous nanocluster colloid solution;
- and
- treating the separated aqueous nanocluster colloid solution by one or more processes selected from the group consisting of adsorption and ion exchange to produce a nanocluster concentrate.
2 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.