Art and science combine to turn gold chloride into nuggets

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The Great Work of the Metal Lover forces extremophilic bacteria to metabolize high concentrations of highly toxic gold chloride which results in the formation of small deposits of gold metal (Photo: G.L. Kohuth)

Gold flecks produced by The Great Work of the Metal Lover (Photo: G.L. Kohuth)

Gold produced from the bioreactor identifies gold deposits in this digital image produced by Adam Brown (Photo: G.L. Kohuth)

Gold being produced in The Great Work of the Metal Lover (Photo: G.L. Kohuth)

Detail of the extracted gold (Photo: Adam Brown)

A 24K gold nugget (Photo: Adam Brown)

The Great Work of the Metal Lover is a portable laboratory featuring a highly specialized metallotolerant extremophilic bacterium called Cupriavidus metallidurans that's forced to metabolize huge amounts of gold chloride to form flecks of usable 24K gold (Photo: Adam Brown)

Close up of the custom glass bioreactor which creates an engineered atmosphere with the help of a gas manifold and a gas tank filled with carbon dioxide and hydrogen (Photo: Adam Brown)

The conversion process is documented in real time via a USB-connected microscope and video feed (Photo: Adam Brown)

A second part of the experiment involves using a scanning electron microscope to create a series of images (Photo: Adam Brown)

Gold deposits produced by the microbes are identified and 24K gold leaf (some of which has been produced in the bioreactor) is selectively applied to digital image prints (Photo: Adam Brown)

Article Summary

For centuries, the world's great thinkers were consumed by the search for the mythical Philosopher's Stone. Franciscan friar Roger Bacon is said to have penned a formula for its creation in the 13th century, legend would have us believe that German friar Albertus Magnus actually found a substance capable of transmuting base metals into gold or silver, and English scientist and mathematician Isaac Newton was a known devotee of the magnum opus. Researchers at Michigan State University (MSU) have put a microbial spin on the ancient quest by creating a bioreactor that forces bacteria to transform a toxic liquid that, as team member Kazem Kashefi says, "has no value into a solid, precious metal that’s valuable."

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