PROCESS FOR THE RECOVERY OF NATURAL NANOCLUSTERS OF METALS AND OTHER ELEMENTS AND THE NANOCLUSTERS ISOLATED THEREBY

摘要

Methods for recovery of naturally occurring nanoclusters are provided involving providing an aqueous nanacluster slurry and desorbing the nanoclusters from the surface of host substrate on which the nanoclusters are bound, followed by isolating the desorbed nanoclusters, and the isolated naturally occurring nanoclusters obtained thereby. Desorbing the nanoclusters from the surface of host substrates in an aqueous nanocluster slurry may be performed by adding a reagent, for instance potassium hydroxide, to the slurry and stirring the same at moderate temperatures until a nanocluster colloid solution is obtained. The desorbed nanoclusters may be recovered from the treated slurry by centrifugation, gravity settling and other suitable means.