Mining
Contents
Less mining (less need for alloying transition metals & catalysis noble metals)
Gem based APM has the potential to massively reduce the need for mining for two main areas.
- (A) Mining for transition metals for the purpouse of allyoing (usually steels)
- (B) Mining for noble metals for the purpouse of catalysis
Reasons:
- (A) gem-gum metamaterials from common elements only will far outperform steels in
–strength, –durability, –choosable properties (see: emulated elasticity for the last one) - (B) mechanochemistry meeds less chemical synthesis and even with a noble metal catalysis boost much fewer active sites as they are much more efficiently used and much less lost via spill.
Near future conventional tech deep sea mining (for manganese) is fast and aggressive (see machines & silt dumping plans)
and that is of great concern the the (very slow acting and slow healing) deep sea marine ecosystems.
Much less dependency on manganese (and/or space mining for it??) might help avoid destruction of this part of nature.
More mining (less effort and more demand in cutting and moving common element material)
- improved mining tools
Abundant non-volatile elements will still be of high insterest to mining. Silicates, aluminates, phosphates, sulfates (sulfur is a semi volatile element but mostly in soil on Earth) And prehaps above and beyond all other in importance: Titanates.
Smart advanced automated mining systems may be imaginable.
APM managed conventional technology.
- First sharp focused sodium ion beams …
(as implanting sodium makes pritty much any and all lithospheric physical material water soluble - Second high pressure hot water cutters following
- Thisrd perhaps aiding mechanically with selfrepairing blades.
Gentler mining
Unlike the atmosphere the lithosphere can be destructured destroying historic geology records.
Yes, preservation of geology is usually for good reason at the lowest rung of priorities.
Still if it becomes easily possible why not do it.
APM based "gentle mining".
Minimize cuts in number and width and document where blocks came from.
Things can be back-filled as they where later.
Gnerally aiming for sharp thin and clean clean cuts as
the less material to atomize mechanically, chemically, or thermally
the more efficient and fast a digging process can become.
Hard rock like granite vcan be nicely mived as solid chunks.
Brittle an crumbly soild will need some on site bagging for a non-nasty transport.
Witer cuts needed but cutting will afford less energy there.
Slightly related: Smecial gem-gum metamaterials designes to be as hard to mechanically/thermally/chemically destroy and get through as possible. Defensive weaponry.
Topics to elaborate
- Legacy waste mining (material recovery or more likely just cleanup of old landfills)
List of raw keywords
Atomically precise disassembly is likely rather difficult for materials of unknown structure.
Likely much easier to do it conventionally.
That is: Tthere is the clearly viable option for APM managed conventional technology.
At least for earlier systems).
Concretely: Bulk chemistry chemical labs on various scales.
Industry scale but APM managed conventional technology makes desktop size viable too.
Sepparating elements via brute force thermochemical processes.
Feeding the raw ore into the recycling cycle may be done along with
no longer atomically precise recyclable incombustible slack froming gem-gum waste
(e.g. gem-gum too damaged for AP reccling).
Feeding all that back into the hot gas phase recycling cycle.
Splicing it back into the biosphere or mechanosphere as desired.
See: Recycling
APM managed conventional technology for bulk chemistry and
hot gas phase recycling cycle will make good use of refractory materials.
Refractory materials are a class of materials that gem-based APM will excel in making.
Related
Nonvolatile and non-watersoluble elements that can only be gained through mining auch as:
Silicon, Phosphorus, Aluminum, Titanium, Iron, ...
