Silicon Dioxide
My husband and I have weird conversations. I was bouncing ideas off of him for my book. I was explaining the atmosphere on Zherosha's largest moon. There was plenty of water, and the algae are what creates the oxygen. There were probably small animals, but they would be small because of the thin air.
Then he asked if it were possible for an animal not to have lungs and instead eat minerals to extract the oxygen. Like consume iron oxide and remove the oxygen from the metal. Of course, this meant the animal would excrete the iron creating magnetic poo.
Yes, we talked about magnetic poo.
But it gets better. Silicon Dioxide (quartz) can also be used. What's would be the excrement? Silicon. The same substance used in processor chips.
We discussed the possibility of farming these animals and collecting the silicon from them.
Think about it.
You could say that your processing chip is a piece of crap and you would be right.
I love being married to my husband!