NEWS

Ingenuity appears, above all, when there are economic needs. A personal experience.

Among the best-known precious metals, silver had a price of more or less 60 cents per gram in recent months. But beyond the ups and downs of the market, an interesting fact for those who want to know the mining potential of our country is that Argentina has today identified resources of 2,813 million ounces of silver, although according to the latest reports from the Ministry of Mining, our estimated geological potential is 6,400 million ounces. That means that almost half of the silver in our territory is not yet exploited.

Argentina's mining potential is waiting, and that is why it is a key sector for the development of the country. In fact, silver had enormous potential for my ingenuity in my own beginnings and perhaps other metals can have it for other people.

I was born in Buenos Aires in 1953 and in 1974, due to various circumstances in my life, I arrived as a cadet at the EF Laboratory, where I started sweeping and tidying. I ended up managing the entire laboratory because I learned very quickly, I practiced and also studied chemistry at night, while working during the day. I had already taken my first steps in chemistry at the Technical School No. 27 ?Hipólito Yrigoyen?, in the Monte Castro neighborhood, but when my father died when I was thirteen, I had to stop studying and start working. My career was always dizzying, and that is why if I set out to do a task I want to be the best. In addition, I was greatly helped by Dr. Enrique Fante, the owner of the EF Laboratory.

He taught me about chemistry, medicine and even how to play chess. He was Austro-German and was my great teacher in life. He played a very important role, since he made me see things as they are. The anecdote is that, when I started working in his laboratory, long before digital photography was invented, curiosity and the need to progress led me to develop an easy method using sulfur to recover silver from the developer liquid that was used at that time by photography stores.

When I left work, then, I would go to photography stores and buy the photographic liquids that they used to develop photos, liquids that were generally discarded after use. However, these liquids had six or seven grams of silver per liter, so after getting them I would process them, recover the silver and sell it. Very few people did this work at that time, but between necessity and concern, I discovered that I could do it. When you have economic needs, your ingenuity sharpens.