{"id":6799,"date":"2012-11-13T11:08:51","date_gmt":"2012-11-13T10:08:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/?p=6799"},"modified":"2019-05-03T11:51:01","modified_gmt":"2019-05-03T09:51:01","slug":"magpie-polymers-gets-its-gold-from-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/2012\/11\/magpie-polymers-gets-its-gold-from-water\/","title":{"rendered":"Magpie Polymers mines for gold in toxic water"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Logo<\/a>CEO of Magpie Polymers<\/a>, Steven van Zutphen<\/a>, is the first to admit it\u2019s an unusual place to look for gold \u2013 water, and then hastens to mention it\u2019s not just gold, but a lot of metals, including the Platinum Group Metals \u2013 Platinum, Palladium and Rhodium.
\nThe chemical process behind that, to which he\u2019s one of the three patent holders, involves resins of various kinds, and he quickly gives up explaining the process when he realizes your correspondent does not have a degree in chemistry.<\/p>\n

Why would anyone extract metals from water?<\/h2>\n

Well, in the case of gold, you\u2019d think it\u2019s obvious, but it wasn\u2019t economically viable until recently, as the process is not without cost. But through diligent research the cost of the process have been brought down, and the recent rise in price of precious metals has also been tremendously helpful to them.
\nIn addition to extracting metals for financial gain, it can also be done to reduce toxicity of waste water \u2013 mines are infamous polluters of large quantities of water, for instance, but lots of industrial processes produce toxins that have to be captured with modern environmental legislation. So Magpie Polymers\u2019 potential market is quite big, and growing all the time.<\/p>\n

Rare earth metals \u2013 rare indeed<\/h2>\n

Another potential future use of their technology is as a source of \u2018rare earth metals\u2019 \u2013 the exotic metals only extracted in one country in the world currently (China) that are critical for producing most modern electronics, including mobile phones, computers, tablets and solar panels. Quite a resource to have a monopoly on! China duly abused this monopoly last year, when they stopped all exports briefly, prompting the major powers of the world to look for alternative sources of rare earths. Magpie Polymers may be a part of the solution to the problem one day.
\nFunded by the surprisingly low first and second rounds \u2013 respectively \u20ac100k and \u20ac500k, by private angels and the fund \u2018Fonds Lorraine des Materiaux\u2019 \u2013 a regional outfit that promotes job creation, they are off to the races \u2013 with a first client signing on in recent weeks! The plan is to generate one million euros in revenue in 2013, an ambitious goal.<\/p>\n

Magpie Polymer’s history<\/h2>\n

The history is that co-founder Steven van Zutphen, as a researcher at the Polytechnique school here in France, created the chemical process with two other researchers. He then got a job and did exactly nothing with it, until he met co-founder Etienne Almoric<\/a> working at a chemical company. When they were offered a Sauvegarde d\u2019emploi (a French concept \u2013 an employer pays an employee to quit, to avoid \u2018firing\u2019). With a nice bundle of cash, both men found themselves in the perfect position to realize their dream \u2013 to start their own company!
\nMagpie Polymers also dreams big \u2013 international expansion, scaling up fabrication of the unique resins, and innovative business models, such as buying up batches of water themselves and making money from the extracted resources.
\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CEO of Magpie Polymers, Steven van Zutphen, is the first to admit it\u2019s an unusual place to look for gold \u2013 water, and then hastens to mention it\u2019s not just gold, but a lot of metals, including the Platinum Group Metals \u2013 Platinum, Palladium and Rhodium. The chemical process behind that, to which he\u2019s one<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":77,"featured_media":64784,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10564],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tech-2"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/77"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6799\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}