Heavy Metal.Here's a wacky get-rich-quick scheme A Get-rich-quick scheme is a plan to acquire high rates of return for a small investment. Most such schemes promise that participants can obtain this high rate of return with little risk. Most get-rich-quick schemes also promise that little skill, effort, or time is required. to take the cake: Hit the streets with a broom and dustpan--to scour scour, scours 1. the chemical and physical cleaning of fleece wool. 2. diarrhea. dietetic scour see dietary diarrhea. peat scour see secondary nutritional copper deficiency. for precious platinum. Platinum is a durable, silver-white metal and a chemical element (a substance made of one kind of atom). The metal is prized as a component in fine jewelry. At a price of $12 per gram, platinum is more valuable than gold ($10 per gram, but can change overnight) or silver (24 cents per gram). So you'd expect the world's supply of platinum to be locked up in bank vaults, right? Not necessarily. "I wondered if there was any platinum on the streets of Cardiff, my hometown," says Hazel Prichard, a British geologist (earth scientist). "So I got a brush and swept dust on the side of a roundabout [traffic circle]." How could platinum end up on city streets? Platinum particles are spewed from catalytic converters, devices fitted to all car exhaust systems in Europe and North America North America, third largest continent (1990 est. pop. 365,000,000), c.9,400,000 sq mi (24,346,000 sq km), the northern of the two continents of the Western Hemisphere. . The converter contains a ceramic honeycomb honeycomb a mosaic of closely packed units with depressed centers giving a honeycomb appearance. honeycomb ringworm see favus. honeycomb stomach reticulum. chamber coated with three grams (0.1 ounce) of platinum. As poisonous emissions from gasoline, like carbon monoxide carbon monoxide, chemical compound, CO, a colorless, odorless, tasteless, extremely poisonous gas that is less dense than air under ordinary conditions. It is very slightly soluble in water and burns in air with a characteristic blue flame, producing carbon dioxide; and nitrogen oxide, pass through the honeycomb, platinum triggers (or catalyzes) a chemical reaction that transforms the fumes fumes odorous gases and other volatile materials; inhalation of irritating fumes causes coughing and, if sufficiently severe, irreversible pulmonary edema. into less noxious gases like carbon dioxide carbon dioxide, chemical compound, CO2, a colorless, odorless, tasteless gas that is about one and one-half times as dense as air under ordinary conditions of temperature and pressure. and nitrogen. Prichard suspected that dustings of platinum might escape from car tailpipes and amass on busy streets. So she swept up road dust early one Sunday morning. Onlookers guffawed at Prichard's stunt, but she may have the last laugh. Her sweepings contained platinum levels up to 126 parts per billion. (Of a billion particles, 126 of them were platinum.) "This is actually quite a high level," Prichard says. By comparison, most of the world's soil contains only one part per billion. Still, Prichard would have to collect more than 907 kilograms (1 ton) of dust to get less than 28 grams (1 ounce) of platinum, or $360's worth. She hopes to find higher concentrations in the ash heaps deposited by road sweepers. So hit your broom closets! |
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