Researchers from the University of Minnesota have found a way to make “fool’s gold” more attractive.
They made it magnetic, according to a new study.
“Most people with a background in magnetism would probably say that it is impossible to electrically transform a non-magnetic material into a magnetic one,” said Chris Leighton, the study’s principal investigator, in a university statement. “However, when we looked a little deeper, we saw a potential route and we made it happen.”
A sample of pyrite and quartz from the USGS. A new study says a team of scientists found a way to make “fool’s gold” magnetic.
(Carlin Green, USGS. Public domain).
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The study appeared Wednesday in the peer-reviewed journal Science Advances.
Fool’s gold, an inexpensive substance also known as pyrite, is often found in quartz veins and is primarily used to create sulfuric acid for industrial applications, according to the US Geological Survey.
The University of Minnesota team had been separately investigating ways to try to make new types of solar panels with sulfur and iron sulfide materials, Leighton said. And they had started looking for ways to use electrical voltages to control magnetism.
Courtesy of the University of Minnestoa Golden background. Gold nugget. Backdrop for the project. Macro
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“At some point, we realized that we should combine these two research directions, and it paid off,” he said.
The result is the first time that scientists have been able to take a non-magnetic material and make it magnetic, according to the university.
They used a process called “electrolyte activation,” using an electrolyte-rich solution, “comparable to Gatorade,” and small applications of electrical volts to move around the molecules and make the substance magnetic.
“We were pretty surprised that it worked,” said Leighton.
“By applying the voltage, we essentially pour electrons into the material,” he explained. “It turns out that if you get high enough concentrations of electrons, the material spontaneously wants to become ferromagnetic (potential magnets), which we could theoretically understand.”
And the technique could have even more applications.
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“This has a lot of potential,” said Leighton. “Having done it with iron sulfide, we believe we can do it with other materials as well.”
