black sand concentrate extraction

[solar_plasma]

because at the mines average of 13 - 15tons of the tailings are produce daily

One or two trucks loads a day with a content comparable to 5K scrap. Tell us when you through all the gold on the market, so we get some short positions 8) Joke aside, I really hope for you, that you aren't getting scammed by your local contacts or by the gold fever. C.W. Ammen's book seem to be a good start for someone interested in the basics of processing ores. Try a search.

 

[Dunamis]

I'll play the devil's advocate for a moment, and assume that there really is a 60% gold concentration. If that be the case, there's not a doubt in my mind---I'd go after the values with a furnace. With such a high concentration of values, even if one achieved just one heat per crucible (you would get more), it would most likely be the most economical and reliable method to operate. If a collector was required, I believe I'd use silver. After all, we're dealing with a very critical value, so that would justify the investment.

Harold

Harold is spot on here - smelting is the best way to treat this material - There are a number of pretreatments that NEED to be done before smelting

Smelting is the ONLY way I would consider for this type material - not saying other methods wont work - just that smelting is by far the better way to go

Dunamis - you need to start doing A LOT of research before you start doing any processing - this is NOT an ask a few question get a few answers kind of thing to learn - & I am not talking just about smelting - but ALL of it "requires" MUCH research - with out research (lots of it) you will only run into troubles :!:

I have been doing this for 4 plus years now - & I am still doing research - every day :!:

Kurt

Kurtak,
really you have said it all. I've been on different articles,books and researches. this is one of the write up I stumbled upon http://mine-engineer.com/mining/minproc/cyanide_leach.htm
I believe it worth giving my time and money. I've been trying gold recovery from waste materials for years with no results and now I think if I got necessary technical way on this it worth it. I'm one of the few Nigerians that started silver recovery from spent fixers in those days. it wasn't easier coming about it then but at last I got it, I did fabricate an electrolytic cells to recover my silver later I adopted chemical precipitation. sincerely it was a journey that pay off at the end so I'm on with this project and I believe it shall be successful,a lot of lessons of life have shown me to keep trying and learning new things "we learn better when we learn always" I'm different from people that doesn't read. long time ago I was taught to read wide if I want to grow wide.
I'm still humble and give respects to you guys that are in front Previous metal wise and to those we are equal(people like me that are still trying to put their fit right)

 

[Dunamis]

uhmm, different school of taught on the cons or ores. I stumbled on different method, SSN leaching on web as quoted
"February 4, 2008
I recently came across this simple solution for gold refining and I copy the recipe directly as is:"SSN Leach.7: 1 (Saturated salt and Nitric acid) this is one of the best leaches for leaching gold and complex hard to leach oresand can be enhanced with addition of a small amount of Iodine. The only downside is that once you have leached your ore or carbon you must neutralize the nitric before you try toextract any of the precious metals out of the pregnant leach. Follow the directions very carefully and you will have an excellent leach for your ore and carbon. This is a mild but very aggressive leach for gold and other precious metals such as the platinum group metals (PGM's). It is not as harmful to the skinas the AR leach nor are the fumes quite as toxic, but we still recommend care and caution when making and handling this leach.DIRECTIONS: NOTE: This recipe is for 2 gallons of leach; you just use the same ratio to make any amount you want. Be sure that you have a well-ventilated area when mixing any chemicals . . . do not breath the fumes!1. Bring 2 gallons of distilled water to a boil in a coated metal pan . . . like the gray/black ones used for canning.2. Add in about 6 pounds of non-iodized salt and stir in very well. You want to fully saturatethe salt into the water.3. Let the solution cool overnight and let all of the excess salt settle to the bottom of the container. Some salt may still be floating on top or stuck to the sides of the container . . . just tap on the side of the container and they will settle to the bottom.4. Dip out 7 quarts of the saturated salt water into another plastic or glass container. You will have a lot of salt gathered in the bottom and approx. a qt of water, just save this for thenext batch and repeat the process but use approx. 5+ pounds of salt on the second and future batches. We just use plastic buckets with lids on them.5. Now to your 7 quarts of saturated salt wateryou add 1 quart of Nitric Acid and mix it together. BE CAREFUL OF THE FUMES that are released. DO NOT BREATHE THEM!6. If you want the leach to be more aggressive. . . which you probably will not need because it is very aggressive as it is . . . you can add upto 1 ounce of iodine. This is the iodine that you buy at a feed store that is used on livestock. It is 7% solution of iodine and costs$20 a gallon."The solution must be neutralised before precipitation. Simple Urea works well. Add small amounts of Urea until fizzing stops.Now use Sodium Metabisulphate to drop yourgold as a brown mud to the bottom of your container. Wash mud with ammonia to make sure all other impurities are dissolved , rinse with distilled water, dry and melt your gold.!Hope this is helpful.Johan Reyneke- Pretoria"

 

[g_axelsson]

Now use Sodium Metabisulphate to drop your gold as a brown mud to the bottom of your container.

Sodium Metabisulphate doesn't precipitate gold, Sodium Metabisulphite does.

As for the rest of the description I have no experience of it and will not comment on it. I still recommend smelting, just as Harold did.

And I'm still skeptical to the amount of gold in your analyze and the lack of common contaminants. It almost sounds like a famous scam from USA. The geologists sampling an area got high gold readings in the morning samples but less later in the days. They were not allowed to use their own tools for sampling and in the end it was found out that the owner of the property added gold dust or gold containing material to the tools during the night. It was enough to transfer back to the samples and hint of a large gold ore. I can't find that report right now but here are some recommended readings about gold scams :
- http://www.nbmg.unr.edu/dox/sp22.pdf
- https://web.archive.org/web/20110810042432/http://minerals.state.nv.us/forms/mining/DiggingDeepIntoMiningHandout.pdf

Göran

 

[Dunamis]

Now use Sodium Metabisulphate to drop your gold as a brown mud to the bottom of your container.

Sodium Metabisulphate doesn't precipitate gold, Sodium Metabisulphite does.

As for the rest of the description I have no experience of it and will not comment on it. I still recommend smelting, just as Harold did.

And I'm still skeptical to the amount of gold in your analyze and the lack of common contaminants. It almost sounds like a famous scam from USA. The geologists sampling an area got high gold readings in the morning samples but less later in the days. They were not allowed to use their own tools for sampling and in the end it was found out that the owner of the property added gold dust or gold containing material to the tools during the night. It was enough to transfer back to the samples and hint of a large gold ore. I can't find that report right now but here are some recommended readings about gold scams :
- http://www.nbmg.unr.edu/dox/sp22.pdf
- https://web.archive.org/web/20110810042432/http://minerals.state.nv.us/forms/mining/DiggingDeepIntoMiningHandout.pdf

Göran

 

[Dunamis]

Sincerely, this forum is great, some things are coming to my memory. I remember my university days when we do tutorials among course mates especially on outcrops students came up with topics and dissect.

so far from few things i got:
1, I need to use rare magnet to remove irons in the cons
2, I need to use HCl to remove contaminants and base metals
3, I need to incinerate the materials
4, then I can follow any method chosen, if smelting I need good flux that can do the job,
if leaching then I will follow the type and the instruction. precaution; it must be perform outdoor. I'm learning from the forum oooo

 

[solar_plasma]

Fire assay using litharge could also be something you want to look into. There is a lot written about it on the forum...and again in Ammen's Recovery and refining of precious metals. Also the usage of collector metals is described there and the extraction of gold from lead with zinc. The book isn't too expensive, now and the there is a link to older versions.

 

[necromancer]

Why would anyone leave 20% Au in tailings?? 100 tons (one week production) of those tailings equate to the nominal GDP (52 weeks!) of Nigeria. So, only running those tailings, not the ore itself, for one year, no Nigerian has to work the next 50 years. Gratulations! You solved Africa's problems! Maybe it is a language problem and I didn't get it right, but what I understood sounds like complete nonsens.

uhmm, well I'm sending the remaining sample for assay in another lab for clarification. I will post the results in the next 3 days

watching this show http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3701166/ (fool's gold) in Ontario Canada
they stated that there may be as much as 40% Au in the tailings piles.

fact or fiction ? who knows for sure. the series was a very short run (8 parts only)

 

[Dunamis]

Fire assay using litharge could also be something you want to look into. There is a lot written about it on the forum...and again in Ammen's Recovery and refining of precious metals. Also the usage of collector metals is described there and the extraction of gold from lead with zinc. The book isn't too expensive, now and the there is a link to older versions.

thanks, I've been searching for the links to the old version. do you have the link pls?

 

[g_axelsson]

Now use Sodium Metabisulphate to drop your gold as a brown mud to the bottom of your container.

Sodium Metabisulphate doesn't precipitate gold, Sodium Metabisulphite does.

As for the rest of the description I have no experience of it and will not comment on it. I still recommend smelting, just as Harold did.

And I'm still skeptical to the amount of gold in your analyze and the lack of common contaminants. It almost sounds like a famous scam from USA. The geologists sampling an area got high gold readings in the morning samples but less later in the days. They were not allowed to use their own tools for sampling and in the end it was found out that the owner of the property added gold dust or gold containing material to the tools during the night. It was enough to transfer back to the samples and hint of a large gold ore. I can't find that report right now but here are some recommended readings about gold scams :
- http://www.nbmg.unr.edu/dox/sp22.pdf
- https://web.archive.org/web/20110810042432/http://minerals.state.nv.us/forms/mining/DiggingDeepIntoMiningHandout.pdf

Göran

Was it something you wanted to say?

Göran

 

[Dunamis]

Now use Sodium Metabisulphate to drop your gold as a brown mud to the bottom of your container.

Sodium Metabisulphate doesn't precipitate gold, Sodium Metabisulphite does.

As for the rest of the description I have no experience of it and will not comment on it. I still recommend smelting, just as Harold did.

And I'm still skeptical to the amount of gold in your analyze and the lack of common contaminants. It almost sounds like a famous scam from USA. The geologists sampling an area got high gold readings in the morning samples but less later in the days. They were not allowed to use their own tools for sampling and in the end it was found out that the owner of the property added gold dust or gold containing material to the tools during the night. It was enough to transfer back to the samples and hint of a large gold ore. I can't find that report right now but here are some recommended readings about gold scams :
- http://www.nbmg.unr.edu/dox/sp22.pdf
- https://web.archive.org/web/20110810042432/http://minerals.state.nv.us/forms/mining/DiggingDeepIntoMiningHandout.pdf

Göran

Was it something you wanted to say?

Göran

no, you have also help my quest to beware of vices in gold recovery. thank you

 

[jungle_Dave]

Hi Dunamis,

I live in Brazil and see people waste gold all the time here. Watch any of the popular tv shows on discovery channel and have a good laugh (or cry) watching people throw away massive amounts of perfectly good material.
That said Brazil is as famous for gold scams as it is for samba!
Enriching ore samples is common practice here so it would not surprise me people do this in Africa too.
If what you have is a concentrate (which it must be) Id pan it first and save the leftovers for further processing.
Anyone feel free to correct me if you think Im wrong.
This would greatly reduce your chemical expenditures or improve your smelt test.
Always be wary of anyone standing on top on a hole with a smile on there face offering you the chance of a lifetime.
Due diligence pays of in the end.


Best wishes and best of luck!

 

[kurtak]

Hi Dunamis,

I live in Brazil and see people waste gold all the time here. Watch any of the popular tv shows on discovery channel and have a good laugh (or cry) watching people throw away massive amounts of perfectly good material.
That said Brazil is as famous for gold scams as it is for samba!
Enriching ore samples is common practice here so it would not surprise me people do this in Africa too.
If what you have is a concentrate (which it must be) Id pan it first and save the leftovers for further processing.
Anyone feel free to correct me if you think Im wrong.
This would greatly reduce your chemical expenditures or improve your smelt test.
Always be wary of anyone standing on top on a hole with a smile on there face offering you the chance of a lifetime.
Due diligence pays of in the end.


Best wishes and best of luck!

Its called "salting the claim"

Kurt

 

[Pagal12]

Harold, did you read, that his "tailings" contain 20% Au, which he concentrated to 60%? I still don't believe there is any thruth in this. I mentioned AR only because of this already almost only is gold, a gold content comparable to jewelry.

I must say that I probably didn't understand the claim, but I have had personal experience with extracting values from relatively high concentrations. That would include a substantial amount of gold mixed with black sand. It works, but presents its own problems. I would recommend it only under the worst possible scenario.

And---and there is an and-----I would determine what percentage of silver is contained within, assuming the particles of gold are of any substance, as silver would slow, maybe even stop, extraction. That's one of the benefits of using cyanide, although unless the values are very fine (small) in nature, it may not function all that well, either.

I'll play the devil's advocate for a moment, and assume that there really is a 60% gold concentration. If that be the case, there's not a doubt in my mind---I'd go after the values with a furnace. With such a high concentration of values, even if one achieved just one heat per crucible (you would get more), it would most likely be the most economical and reliable method to operate. If a collector was required, I believe I'd use silver. After all, we're dealing with a very critical value, so that would justify the investment.

I do have an issue with the idea that those who created the dump site would have left behind visible gold. Not saying it wouldn't have been possible, but it certainly makes little sense, especially when one considers that mercury has been used with reckless abandon in such a case.

Lets leave it like this. I'm skeptical, but open to evidence to support the claim. Mean time, it is my recommendation that no one get involved with this project, aside from providing guidance where it may be appropriate. Mean time, if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck -----

Harold

Harold, I salute you. open mind.your comment is helpful thank you sir