The patio process was a process used to extract silver from ore. The process was invented by Bartolomé de Medina in Pachuca, New Spain (Mexico), in 1554. The patio process was the first process to use mercury amalgamation to recover silver from ore. It replaced smelting as the primary method of extracting silver from ore at Spanish colonies in the Americas. Other amalgamation processes were later developed, importantly the pan amalgamation process, and its variant, the Washoe process. The silver separation process generally differed from gold parting and gold extraction, although amalgamation with mercury was also sometimes used to extract gold.
Read more about Patio Process: Development of The Patio Process, Basic Elements of The Patio Process, Broader Historical Significance
Famous quotes containing the word process:
“A process in the weather of the world
Turns ghost to ghost; each mothered child
Sits in their double shade.
A process blows the moon into the sun,
Pulls down the shabby curtains of the skin;
And the heart gives up its dead.”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)