Borax method

The borax method is a technique of artisanal gold mining, which uses borax as a flux to purify gold concentrates. By using borax, no mercury flour is produced, hence gold recovery increases.

The borax method of gold extraction has been used by artisanal gold miners in the Benguet area north of Manila in the Philippines for more than 30 years. Some believe it was in practice as early as the 1900s. The method is increasingly being seen as a safe alternative to the widespread use of toxic mercury in artisanal gold mining today. About 30% of the world's mercury emissions comes from small scale mining. Efforts are being made to revive the method and spread its use. Presently around 15,000 artisanal gold miners in a small area of Luzon, the main island in the northern portion of the Philippines, use this method exclusively. The mineral is inexpensive and easily available, and the miners have reportedly found that more gold is recovered through its use.

Although said that borax can replace mercury, actually it does not occur. Borax is used alone only when gold concentrates are up from 25% from the mixture used.

Borax

Borax, also known as sodium borate, sodium tetraborate, or disodium tetraborate, is an important boron compound, a mineral, and a salt of boric acid. Powdered borax is white, consisting of soft colorless crystals that dissolve easily in water.

Borax has a wide variety of uses. It is a component of many detergents, cosmetics, and enamel glazes. It is also used to make buffer solutions in biochemistry, as a fire retardant, as an anti-fungal compound, in the manufacture of fiberglass, as a flux in metallurgy, neutron-capture shields for radioactive sources, a texturing agent in cooking, and as a precursor for other boron compounds.

In artisanal gold mining, the borax method is sometimes used as a substitute for toxic mercury in the gold extraction process. Borax was reportedly used by gold miners in parts of the Philippines in the 1900s.

The term borax is used for a number of closely related minerals or chemical compounds that differ in their crystal water content, but usually refers to the decahydrate. Commercially sold borax is partially dehydrated.

Borax (disambiguation)

Borax is Sodium borate, a boron-containing mineral.

Borax may also refer to:

See also

BORAX experiments

The BORAX Experiments were a series of safety experiments on boiling water nuclear reactors conducted by Argonne National Laboratory in the 1950s and 1960s at the National Reactor Testing Station in eastern Idaho. They were performed using the five BORAX reactors that were designed and built by Argonne. BORAX-III was the first nuclear reactor to supply electrical power to the grid in the United States in 1955.

Evolution of BORAX

This series of tests began in 1952 with the construction of the BORAX-I nuclear reactor. BORAX-I experiment proved that a reactor using direct boiling of water would be practical, rather than unstable, because of the bubble formation in the core. Subsequently the reactor was used for power excursion tests which showed that rapid conversion of water to steam would safely control the reaction. The final, deliberately destructive test in 1954 produced an unexpectedly large power excursion that "instead of the melting of a few fuel plates, the test melted a major fraction of the entire core." However, this core meltdown and release of nuclear fuel and fission products provided additional useful data to improve mathematical models. The tests proved key safety principles of the design of modern nuclear power reactors. Design power of BORAX-I was 1.4 megawatts thermal. The BORAX-I design was a precursor to the SL-1 plant, which was sited nearby and began operations in 1958. The principles discovered in the BORAX-I experiments helped scientists understand the issues which contributed to the fatal incident at SL-1 in 1961.

Method

Method may refer to:

Arts

Method (Experience Design Firm)

Method, Inc. is an international experience design firm with offices in San Francisco, New York, and London.

History

Method is an international experience design firm focused at the intersection of brand, product, and service design. Method was created in 1999 by Kevin Farnham, David Lipkin, Patrick Newbery, Mike Abbink, and Meng Mantasoot. First started in San Francisco, Method's founding principle was to use multidisciplinary, multi-platform design thinking to create beautiful and extendable solutions. Method's goal was to be quick to adapt to new technology. Method has approximately 100 employees in 3 offices located in San Francisco, New York, and London.

In 1999, the opportunity to work together with Autodesk arose, launching Method. In 2000, Method expanded and opened its New York office in order to accommodate more work. Method's earliest clients were Autodesk, Adobe Systems, Gucci, Palm, MoMA, and Macromedia.

Their international presence was established in 2008 when Method opened its London office.

Method (computer programming)

A method (or message) in object-oriented programming (OOP) is a procedure associated with an object class. An object is made up of behavior and data. Data is represented as properties of the object and behavior as methods. Methods are also the interface an object presents to the outside world. For example a window object would have methods such as open and close. One of the most important capabilities that a method provides is method overriding. The same name (e.g., area) can be used for multiple different kinds of classes. This allows the sending objects to invoke behaviors and to delegate the implementation of those behaviors to the receiving object. Method in java programming sets the behaviour of class object. For example an object can send an area message to another object and the appropriate formula will be invoked whether the receiving object is a rectangle, circle, triangle, etc.

Methods also provide the interface that other classes use to access and modify the data properties of an object. This is known as encapsulation. Encapsulation and overriding are the two primary distinguishing features between methods and procedure calls.