RE:RE:CompetitionOkay, so here is the enviroleach patent:
https://patents.google.com/patent/US10526682B2/en?oq=10%2c526%2c682+enviroleach
Reading it will show how ETIs process differs from the "competition".
Below is a piece regarding the Mint process written in 2019:
https://www.pnas.org/content/116/3/711
I draw everyone's attention to the following paragraphs (in particular the part bolded):
In hopes of commercializing its approach, a biometallurgy company called Mint Innovation in Auckland has opted to combine chemical and biological recycling processes. First, the team uses industrially produced acids and oxidants to leach gold from e-waste. As much as possible, these chemicals will be reused in subsequent cycles to minimize toxic effluent, says Ollie Crush, the company’s chief scientific officer.
Next, the bacterium
Cupriavidus metallidurans refines the gold. Initially isolated from a metal-processing factory tank in the 1970s, the microbes can absorb gold. “We basically use it as a sponge,” says Will Barker, the firm’s chief executive officer. Unlike the
D. acidovorans bacteria used by Ting’s team,
C. metallidurans takes the gold into its cells instead of making the metal precipitate as nanoparticles.
Does everyone now get how important the ETI patent is?