Tech giants sued over deaths of children who mine cobalt

Re:Tech giants sued over deaths of children who mine cobalt by philipkglass on Wednesday December 18, 2019 @01:45PM (#21827888)

Cobalt has only one naturally occurring isotope, so I don't think you can use any tricks from chemistry or physics to track it back to the source after it has been separated from ore. Instead you need tamper-resistant supply chain documentation all the way back to the actual mine.

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Re:Tech giants sued over deaths of children who mine cobalt by dv_dt on Wednesday December 18, 2019 @02:23PM (#21828295)

I'm not familiar w/ cobalt, but materials are rarely 100% pure. One might look at non-cobalt materials associated with the pure material and what ratios they're in? Again not perfect but something.

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Re:Tech giants sued over deaths of children who mine cobalt by solidasparagus on Thursday December 19, 2019 @08:00PM (#21840891)

I think one of the problems is that the cobalt doesn't reach component manufacturers until it's been through a series of smelters/refiners.

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