Off guard eason stoking calls for a stricter lockdown nearly 500 deaths and 28000 new infections have been reported over a single day chancellor Angela Merkel and regional leaders will consider tougher restrictions in emergency talks on sunday. The 1st International Aid convoy has arrived in ethiopias to grad region since fighting broke out almost 6 weeks ago the mission includes 7 red cross trucks carrying medicines and supplies for hospitals and about 1000. 00 families who were displaced by the conflict. This is d. W. News from berlin follow us on twitter and instagram at d w news or visit to d w dot com. Our planet contains name. Treasures we extract metals and minerals from the ground to use for building roads machinery and computer chips all our Technological Progress depends on these resources but supplies of Raw Materials are not infinite in many cases mining them poisons people and the environment and yet the Electronics Industry critically relies on them how can we continue to develop Technology Without draining our worlds resources. Welcome to the morrow today the science show on t w o. This is according more chemist engineer and entrepreneur back in the 1960 s. He formulated what is becoming known as moores law roughly speaking its does the number of transistors on a microchip doubles every 2 years that means computers steadily become more powerful more predicted that the trend would continue up to now it has computer chips are getting even smaller a team of scientists in germany has now found a way of downsizing microchips still further. Its a simple fact of modern life electronic gadgets get smaller and smaller and theyre able to do more and more that microprocessors a constantly becoming by is tiny a more powerful. Computer chips to downsize is not a matter of magic it needs the brains of people like the page at kurtz. And 6 gay union together as part of an International Network theyve taken a huge step to even smaller chips. But how computer chips made in the 1st place in principle it takes something like. The chip circuitry is stenciled on to the side but instead. Of projecting the pic challenge with screen you focus it onto a silicon wafer with a light sensitive coating plus. The image can then be developed much like a photograph and at the end you have your computer chips. With technology we can now integrate over 16000000000 transistors onto a microchip thats smaller than a fingertip. But what kind of components do we need for a projector we need a light source a and an optical system fi consisting of lenses and mirrors. Lets start with a light source light is an electromagnetic wave and waves have a wavelength red light has a long way franks blue light a short wave length and ultraviolet light a very short wave length but what does that have to do with chip manufacture roses mohan hopper tartars put simply a long wavelength means large structural size a short wavelength mean small structural size. And you are trying to extreme ultraviolet light or you re has a wavelength of 13 member half nominators. Thats less than a 10th of previously ours wavelengths. You can create images of structures in much sharper resolution. It takes a laser to generate even light but how does that work to begin with you have to build the worlds most powerful industrial pulsed laser its a technological masterpiece it produces a high intensity light pain but not even yet. To get that you need to train a laser beam is aimed at a drop hit of liquid tin the High Energy Light heats the tin 2220000. Degree celcius transforming it into a plasma which radiates the desired a u. V. Light. The pulse laser does that 50000. 00 times a 2nd. So that takes care of the day we have a light source whats missing is the optical system be. Lost lens is a no good for the task they only transmit certain wavelengths and not one of them. The solution is to use curved mirrors instead of lenses the light only has to reflect on the surface it doesnt have to pass through. The mirror as a ground from glass blocks like this and then polished surfaces are incredibly smooth. If this marrow was scaled up to be the size of germany its biggest irregularity would be barely a 10th of a millimeter deep. But its not just about grinding and polishing a mirror requires a coating. And this equipment gives the merest glass surface extremely thin coatings of silicon and molybdenum. Theyre only a few atoms thick but the research is apply as many as a 100 layers why is that. If the mirrors coating is too thick then it will absorb too much of the light. Up so this is but its still a huge struggle to get good reflection using layers deserve should. Fear radically the maximum reflectivity least 75 percent as far as i know. This was. In part of our own servers for say. Reflectivity is a measure of. Performance and 70 percent is a great value. The magic lies in constructive interference which works like this and. Is reflected for the rest penetrates the top layer to reach the next more ms reflected the rest penetrates to the next layer and so on if the layers all have the correct thickness the reflected light is. Now the light reflected from the reaches. And the next generation computer chip take shape. So. For 20 years its a great feeling to hold a gadget in your hand with an e. U. Reach chip inside and to know that we helped develop the technology that made this kind of chip possible. The trio of scientists was awarded the christie just german future prize for their innovation that technology is already in use the latest smartphone carry chips fashioned with extreme ultraviolet light its just one more confirmation of moores law which says the number of transistors that fit on the chip doubles every 2 years. In the 20 people started saying that the limits of moores law would be reached. And it wouldnt be possible to go any further. With technology we now have the technology with which we can continue pushing moores law over the next 10 years. Good killing. One valuable commodity used in modern electronics is gold its a highly efficient conductor that doesnt rust and hardly react at all with other elements. An estimated 200000 tons of gold have been mined to date. The search for gold has led to bloody conflicts in many regions and the processes involved in extracting it pollute water and soil in danger Peoples Health reason enough to come up with alternative ways of striking gold. Theres Hidden Treasure in this trash. Germany alone generates a 1000000 tons of electronic waste every year and the scrap is a gold mine literally just look at this computer Circuit Board for example. Gold conducts electricity better than copper take this gold plated edge connector the gold is used to ensure the best possible connection for high quality fast data transfer. These connectors have to be technically sound meaning the gold plating prevents oxidize sation and guarantees the best possible connectivity throughout the devices lifetime so id best movement here connectivity be it laptop or smartphone most electronic could quit the function without gold. The electronic waste from 5 computers contains a total of one cram of gold thats actually a lot its the same as the amount contained in 2 tonnes of. But mining it would generate huge amounts of c o 2 anough to drive a car 3 times around the globe. The greater the ecological footprint of a material or product becomes the more important it is to recycle but does recycling make economic sense and doesnt. We protect the environment our group uses a company that recycles medals including goals. The 1st stage involves shredding the waste in separating plastics from metals that these a mixture of metals which are melted down together in a furnace at 1300. 00 degrees celcius the heavier metals gold silver and copper zinc together to the bottom of the melting vessel and can be poured off separately from the lighter metals about. The heavy metals end up in places like these theyre mostly copper but they do contain quite a bit of gold. Going on for stents wife 2 of these plates weighed just under 800. 00 kilos he has one troy ounce of gold distributed throughout those plates 31. 00 grounds our aim is to extract it with a minimum of loss so exciting. Each strachan process uses a lot of chemicals the plates are dipped in a sequence of acid baths each of which dissolves a different metal from the mixture 1st the copper then silver last of all the goals. Rubies wont let us film the last stage of the process thats a commercial secret. Recovers 18 tons of gold a year from electronic waste its evidently a lucrative business but its impact on the environment just less beneficial the assets have to be disposed of in an elaborate process and the smelting furnace churns out large amounts of c o 2. But recycling gold might soon become more environmentally friendly industrial Biotech Company brain is working on a completely new method its using bacteria to recover the gold from the electronic scrap even though by. Tyria normally avoid the precious metal like the play. It emits highly i think even though the metal is a not very reactive and that anti microbial its a very special property if an organism can survive in high concentrations of the metal quite apart from being able to get the metal into solution esther got bore and her team experimented with thousands of bacterial strains till they found a suitable candidate theyve dubbed it pseudomonas but thomas solvents meaning metal solving pseudomonas bacterium. The researchers at brain demonstrate how the gold is extracted in a plant theyve developed and dubbed the bio extractor. The biological miracle takes place in this fact. First polarized electronic waste this black sludge is mixed with a lot of water then the mixture is or not kill a did with the bacteria which are suspended in a yellow liquid. Thanks to nutrients in the water the bacteria thrive and we can colonizing the electronic waste particles and leeching the precious metal into solution. The gold rich water is then simply pumped off. But how do you get the gold out of the water. Thats the job of the 2nd type of bacteria in these pellets they soak up the gold like a sponge. The pellets are then burned off that leaves a residue of small but very pure gold nuggets. It would say the process takes place and a very gentle we work at Room Temperature the bacteria become active at 26. 00 degrees celsius the biological process releases half the amount of c o 2 compared with the melting process the bacterial approach is safer and more eco friendly than the smelting and chemical processes the next stage is to scale up grains brainy solution it may look very promising but its too soon to say whether the bio extraction methods will win out. To mine gold or other Precious Metals you usually have to blast your way through masses of rock. But how did these Raw Materials get there in the 1st place many chain from hot fluids flowing to cracks in the earths crust these deposits pushed up with other layers of rock to form impressive structures if you were from kenya wanted to know more. The rocks grow. Poppy cracks like these consist of hard compacts often imbecile formations theyre considered immovable and immutable like the old saying solid as a rule. But snow when ice wind and rain gradually where a way the rocky peak of a mountain. It gets ground to pebbles then sand and finally to silt the process of erosion the souces carried away by water and often ends up in the ocean as settlement on the seabed. Over millions of years the must become stents and cement into sedimentary rock. Where 2 or more of tectonic plates are pushed together the sedimentary rock on the edges of the plates pushed upwards to form a mountain chain but the rock doesnt grow again maps it merely alters shape. Back at the peak again erosion begins it start to work the geological cycle starts over. Rocks to form and grow when for example Calcium Carbonate precipitates out of the water from a spring like this one in southern germany. This forms limestone deposits which together with moss and blue alkie creates a firm crust that is impermeable to water. Thus the rock does grow a few millimeters a year thanks to the Calcium Carbonate. In. The same process can be seen in caves. Where the water borne deposits forms that look tights which grow downwards from the roof and stuff like mites which grow up whats. The right crystal or quartz found in the alps can also grow in a similar way as does lime scale in the shower. And even the tartar on our teeth. Its formed by the mineralization of dead bacteria and dental plaque. The oldest known rocks on our planet are located in canada a cast a nice complex is more than 4000000000 years old a look back into our planets prehistory the outcrop was formed what it was. For 900 degrees celsius. The earth was pretty wild back then a multitude planet bombarded by meteorites the salt that we now use to season our food was also formed back then. 4 and a half 1000000000 years ago our planet was a red hot ass as it cooled volcanoes hold matter from its in a most court to the surface liquid rock richen sodium gushed from fishes in the earths crust and the gas clouds from the volcanic crater has contained not only water vapor but lowering. It remained in the atmosphere until the air cooled enough for the 1st rains. The chlorine was washed down with the rain into the rivers as the water flowed from there into the sea it passed over volcanic rock containing sodium. The water leached out the sodium meaning the primordial ocean now contained but sodium and chlorine. As the sea evaporated in many areas over the course of millions of years it left behind sodium chloride otherwise known as cells. And the process continues to this day the sun evaporates the water and sea salt is left behind and on very hot sunny days with steady winds particularly fine crystals form the coveted just said. Today salt from ancient oceans is also found far from the sea the movement of the earths tectonic plates pushed the salt either to high allegations. Deep into the ground. So all. Our salt originally hails from the seas and oceans one of the oldest ways of harvesting this vital material is by allowing sea water to evaporate in basins salt crystals are left behind. But much of the salt formed millions of years ago now slumbers would meet the earths surface we visit our walk salt mine in western germany to see how it is extracted. From that to feel need about 100 seconds to get to the bottom were moving at 10 meters per 2nd. Move of left them on heads the Salt Production here 900 meters below ground today they want to extract 8000 tons of salt from the mine and that calls for some unusual measures. If we are going to blast chamber 9101. 00 of our biggest a bit specials lets see how it goes. Checking in and out is especially important when blast work is being carried out underground. First the work has to be planned this is chamber 910 blasting here requires an entire team. But theyll also need to work at 2 other locations in the mine to reach the day started of 8000 times. The mine is a vast labyrinth of tunnels and chambers 900 meters underground each day it expands a little further. Before blasting can proceed in chamber 910 more work is needed elsewhere where the team wont meet its target. Let a man doesnt need a g. P. S. To navigate down here i know ive been doing this for 32 years im in my element down here in the salt were nearly there like theres the load at. The wheel loader can pick up 20 tons of salt at a time its so pure you could sprinkle it straight onto a boiled egg and eat it. As soon as the salt has been loaded up the roof of the Chamber Needs to be secured. First any loose rocks are scraped off the surface. Supporting anchors up to 3 and a half meters long are driven into the roof to prevent collapse. Conditions are tough its a stifling 40 degree celsius and the salt makes the air dusty and dry. At least that also means that nothing down here rests. Just one hour to go to detonation. If hows it looking. Good we are on schedule but we need to get over to chamber 910 to prepare for blasting. The tunnels and chambers here in the salt mine are usually 7 meters high. But this is the one big exception. Chamber 910 is 20 meters high. Theyre going to blast this ridge poles have already been drilled for the explosives. Its the moment of truth the Explosives Team moves into position. They normally blow up smaller walls. For this one they need half a ton of explosives. First detonators are placed in the drilled holes then explosives are inserted deep into the wall. The detonator wires are magnetic so their fragments can be retrieved from the salt afterwards. Then its time to move to a safe distance 3 kilometers away. All the leads come together at this central ignition point now they just need the final go ahead. You go hello jaeger here is everything clear. Ok well get started. Ohms reading good lets go. Then its. Wonderful that was very good. We drive back to the blast site over back to my now needs to check the loose material thats been created by the explosions oh that looks good. So please happy yeah thats a feat and yes very happy it worked beautifully the size and shape of the boulders is ideal a very good result. To feed in. And were the 1st humans to ever hold the solid rock in our hands its 250000000 years old there you go a gift for you thank you. If you know how some of us here are the nearly this is 1500 tons thats what we needed to reach our goal of 8000 tons for today im a very happy go to. Develop what is red white object but a movie review. If you have a science question thats bothering you send it in as a video text or voice mail if we answer it on the show youll get a little surprise as a thank you just asked we look forward to hearing from you. For more science stories check out our website e. W. Dot com slash science or look for us on twitter. Thats all for now from tomorrow today your Science Program m d w thanks for joining us well be back next week until then stay healthy and stay curious. Healthy eating. Is it making the environment. Super food global hype about eating. But what happens where super foods are gone. The exploding demand for them threatening entire income systems. On t. W. Christmas is cancelled not so fast. We heat up the oven and bake some cookies. To bloggers with a sweet to invite us into their bakery they share their Favorite Recipes with. And some valuable tips for making traditional christmas cookies. Your moment. In 60 missions on d w. Why did this person. There are many answers. To. Get the result that can be done. Last. Make up your own mind body double glad. They hit and healthy and move in just cost and try and see if the foods. From a super food means what does you good because super foods are super for my body was. Berries and chia seeds just 3 of the countless soup
comparemela.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.