Seabed resource extraction box

Abstract

Deep-sea marine resources, though abundant, have never been mined before, but accessing the deep sea itself is difficult, making their extraction impossible. [Solution] A bottomless storage box with pointed lower edges on all four sides is dropped from the sea to the seabed. The force of the fall causes the sediment inside the box to dig into the seabed sediment, bringing together the tips of the two bottom lid plates attached to the box. These plates are then held in place by the force of a strong magnet, forming a bottom lid. A timer, which takes into account the time the storage box is submerged in the sea, activates, causing an airbag to deploy. The buoyancy generated by the deployment of the airbag lifts the storage box, now containing the seabed sediment, back to the surface.

Description

[Technical Field]

[0001] The present invention relates to a simple mining technique for deep-seabed resources such as rare earths. [Background Art]

[0002] Deep-seabed resources have not been mined so far, so they exist in abundant quantities. However, even reaching the deep sea is difficult, and mining of deep-seabed resources has not been achieved. [Prior Art Documents] [Patent Documents]

[0003] [Patent Document 1] Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2015-78598 [Summary of the Invention] [Problem to be Solved by the Invention]

[0004] The present invention transports a large amount of mud containing mineral resources on the deep seabed to the sea surface in a short time. [Means for Solving the Problem]

[0005] A bottomless storage box with sharpened lower sides on four edges is dropped from the sea surface to the seabed. By virtue of the sediment inside the storage box that has bitten into the seabed sediment by the momentum of the fall, the tips of two bottom cover plates attached to the storage box meet each other, and are maintained by the force of a strong magnet to form a bottom cover. A timer that takes into account the falling time of the storage box in the sea is activated to deploy an airbag, and the buoyancy generated by the deployment of the airbag causes the storage box containing the seabed sediment to float up to the sea surface. [Effect of the Invention]

[0006] The present invention enables transportation of mineral resources such as rare earths from the deep seabed to the sea surface, which has been considered extremely difficult until now. [Brief Description of Drawings]

[0007] [Figure 1] This shows an overview of the storage box used to collect seabed mud. [Modes for carrying out the invention]

[0008] A bottomless storage box with pointed lower edges on all four sides is dropped from the sea to the seabed. The force of the fall causes the sediment inside the box to dig into the seabed sediment, bringing together the tips of the two bottom lid plates attached to the box. These plates are then held in place by the force of a strong magnet, forming a bottom lid. A timer, which takes into account the time the storage box is submerged in the sea, activates, causing an airbag to deploy. The buoyancy generated by the deployment of the airbag lifts the storage box, now containing the seabed sediment, back to the surface.

[0009] Figure 1 shows a bottomless storage box with pointed bottoms on all four sides, equipped with a stopper and two bottom lid plates, being dropped from the sea to the seabed. The force of the fall causes the storage box to dig into the sediment on the seabed, pushing the two closing pressure-acting parts (balancers) attached to the storage box upwards. The lower tips of the two bottom lid plates, which are linked to the balancers, move closer together. Furthermore, the upward pressure from the sediment beneath the bottom lid plates causes the lower sides of the two bottom lid plates to come together, forming a bottom lid that is held in place by the force of a strong magnet. The bottom lid is maintained not only by the force of the magnet, but also by the pressure exerted outward by the soil and sand trapped inside the storage box, which pushes the balancer outward. If the bottom cover is not formed properly, the problem can be solved by changing the angle or size of the balancer, or by setting multiple balancers with different angles for a single bottom cover plate. Furthermore, a timer that takes into account the time it takes for the storage box to fall into the sea activates, causing the airbag to deploy. The buoyancy generated by the deployment of the airbag then causes the storage box containing the seabed sediment to float to the surface. If the airbag fails to deploy, the storage box will remain submerged at the bottom of the sea, so it is advisable to install multiple airbags. By changing the height and shape of the storage box, it becomes possible to select geological layers near the surface of the deep seabed (e.g., mainly excavating sediment (mud) at a depth of XX cm from the seabed surface). [Industrial applicability]

[0010] This technology will make it possible to extract large quantities of mineral resources such as rare earth elements from the deep seabed, which has previously been considered extremely difficult.

Claims

[Claim 1] A bottomless storage box with two bottom lid plates attached and pointed edges on the bottom is dropped from the sea to the seabed. The force of the fall causes the sediment inside the storage box to dig into the seabed sediment, pushing two balancers attached to the storage box upwards. The lower ends of the two bottom lid plates, which are linked to the balancers, move closer together. Furthermore, the upward pressure from the sediment beneath the bottom lid plates causes the lower ends of the two bottom lid plates to come together and are held in place by the force of a powerful magnet to form a bottom lid. A timer that takes into account the time the storage box is dropped into the sea activates, deploying an airbag. The buoyancy from the deployed airbag causes the storage box containing the seabed sediment to float to the surface of the sea.

Images