A glass of wine could be the key to finding new mineral deposits according to Australian scientists.
Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Research Organization (CSIRO) Exploration & Mining scientist, Dr Ryan Noble has found that chemical ingredients in wine and some soft drinks (including weak organic acids) have the ability to dissolve weakly-bound metals into solution.
"When you mix the drinks with soil, acids dissolve some of the metals into solution, which can then easily be detected in routine laboratory analysis
"The chemical ability of wine and soft drinks makes them very suitable for use as a cheap extraction tool that can be applied to mineral exploration," Dr Noble says.
The drinks have proven to be particularly effective at discovering elevated levels of metals such as silver, zinc, copper and nickel.
In many cases the comparison of metals extracted using wine and soft drink were superior to those extracted using conventional, and much more expensive, commercial solvents, according to the CSIRO.
Results of the testing were presented at the recent 2007 CRC LEME Mineral Exploration Seminar where the findings were bought to the attention of the exploration industry.
By Ozge Ibrahim
