How many liters of seawater would have to be processed to recover 1 kilogram of gold?
June 5th, 2009 | 
Author: A cubic meter of seawater contains 6 x 10^-6 grams gold. A cubic meter is equal to 1,000 liters. 1000 grams (g) = 1 kilogram (kg) Do you think this recovery operation is feasible?
6 x 10^-6 grams/m^3
(6 x 10^-6 g/m^3) /(1000 l/m^3) = 6 x 10^-9 grams/liter
(6 x 10^-9 g/l)(x liters) = 1000g
x = 1000 g/(6 x 10^-9 g/l)
x = 1.67 x 10^11 liters (which equals 1.67 x 10^8 m^3)
The operation isn’t feasible in my opinion. I would suspect that the amount of time and energy required to process that volume of water would exceed the value of 1kg of gold.
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6 x 10^-6 grams/m^3
(6 x 10^-6 g/m^3) /(1000 l/m^3) = 6 x 10^-9 grams/liter
(6 x 10^-9 g/l)(x liters) = 1000g
x = 1000 g/(6 x 10^-9 g/l)
x = 1.67 x 10^11 liters (which equals 1.67 x 10^8 m^3)
The operation isn’t feasible in my opinion. I would suspect that the amount of time and energy required to process that volume of water would exceed the value of 1kg of gold.
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