Mercury Amalgamation Formulas

[PeterM]

Though is has become an ancient art in America, it is still used in many Third World Countries.


Notice; the PDF file has been removed over concerns that the formulations may be proprietary. Even without the formulations the thread has value as to processing of ores.

 

[4metals]

Such a detailed and well documented report.....and it's called Mercury Amalgamation? Why???

Surely there must be some explanation forthcoming.

 

[PeterM]

Such a detailed and well documented report.....and it's called Mercury Amalgamation? Why???

Surely there must be some explanation forthcoming.

Well, first, historical reasons would be one. 2. I used mercury for amalgamation of concentrates for many years while mining in Guyana. In my estimation >90% still use it today, not to mention the Venezuelan's and Brazilian's, Surinamese, and French Guyanese. Allow us to remember the methods used in third world countries are different the what is used in America. However without the usage of this method used, many families with starve, though it's difficult to conceive, it's true.. Most all mining in those countries are all done by hydraulicing with few using excavator, grisly, sluice box combination. In the video link provided explains just how most of it is done with some variations.

3. I was under the impression this website was about gold, refining, assaying and it's recovery, is it not? Not everyone looking at this site is from America, Canada or even Europe for that matter, and need every edge to recovery as mush gold as possible. My perfect example: While mining down in Guyana all those around me were using mercury while I wasn't. Everyone around me recovered and average of 2+ ounces more gold per pit then myself(a pit was about (30'X40'). After asking the local miners why were they recovering more gold, their answer was mercury(plain and simple). The application of the mercury to the How they applied it is topic of another day.
**** Let me made this clear I am an advocate to protect the environment, and all of you out there using chemicals should not be pouring their acids down the drain but taking care of it properly(as I believe many of you do already). I'm not going back, I made enough money and now retired from it.

 

[FrugalRefiner]

I looked at your attachment. I think the point 4metals was making is that there doesn't seem to be any information about mercury in it. Maybe I just don't understand what I was looking at?

Dave

 

[4metals]

In the '80's I was extracting placer gold from a river in Ecuador and we cleaned up all of our black sands with mercury to concentrate the gold. Mercury was widely available in 10kg dewars (which is what they called the stainless steel containers it came in). I brought with me, from the US, a mercury still and used it to recover the mercury by distillation. The amalgam was collected and squeezed through chamois cloth to squeeze out most of the liquid mercury for reuse. The amalgam which still contained some mercury was distilled to collect the balance of the mercury.

Most of those I met down there did not use a still, they squeezed out the mercury and melted the remaining amalgam. This drove off the mercury (not good) and resulted in bars of dorè gold.

I remember being quite happy that, after months on site, I returned to the supplier where I got the mercury and he threw it on the scale and said it was full. I remember he said something like I thought you were looking for gold, why didn't you use the mercury. I went back to our Land Rover and brought out the still for him to see and told him it recycles the mercury. He wasn't impressed because he made his money selling mercury not recycling it. I'm sure he sold that dewar as a new cylinder!

 

[PeterM]

I looked at your attachment. I think the point 4metals was making is that there doesn't seem to be any information about mercury in it. Maybe I just don't understand what I was looking at?

Dave

Dave, I had to edit that out, as I got a lot of flack from tree huggers because of the use of Mercury. However this video does tell the story on how it's done largely in a most Jungle areas today, at the least the ones I mentioned, approval or disapproval is not the scope, I am only providing my history. I retired from the steamy jungles of Guyana, but later went on to Sierra Leone, West Africa to mine gold and diamond. I paid them $2.50 per day which was good wages, as in DRC(Congo) wages were $1.00 per day. If I can remember correctly, I hired the entire village >100 people. Again it's a younger man's game, now at 72 I don't care to. I'm only providing information, anyone can still do it today, there is plenty gold in West Africa, it was hardly sought after, they mostly chased diamond. The problems is: mining is never where the rubber meets the road.
Respectfully,
P

 

[4metals]

Peter,

I appreciate the fact that you have posted details about your experiences with the process and video you outlined. This is at the very least educational and potentially a great benefit to some of our “mining” members. It just seems there are some gaping holes which hopefully can be fixed.

I don’t think the average member can be called a tree hugger. I prefer to think we are trying to use responsible methods and be aware of our environmental impact as much as possible.

As I was trying to point out when I posted about distillation of mercury in Ecuador, it is my point of view that we were operating as efficiently as possible with as little environmental impact as possible.

In Ecuador we just used mercury for the amalgamation. Are we to believe you added some additional chemistry or pretreatment to your feed before amalgamation and the edited PDF you posted is a partial description of your amalgamation process? A bit of explanation will go a long way towards members following some method with large chunks missing (edited out?) and seeing an actual method which we can discuss here and avoid any misconception.

 

[Yggdrasil]

Though is has become an ancient art in America, it is still used in many Third World Countries.

This one baffles me a bit. It just seems like a shopping list for refining related chemicals.
Have you seen what you posted?
Did you post the wrong pdf?
This many units of this and this many units of that, nothing about mercury and amalgamation???

 

[PeterM]

Peter,

I appreciate the fact that you have posted details about your experiences with the process and video you outlined. This is at the very least educational and potentially a great benefit to some of our “mining” members. It just seems there are some gaping holes which hopefully can be fixed.

I don’t think the average member can be called a tree hugger. I prefer to think we are trying to use responsible methods and be aware of our environmental impact as much as possible.

As I was trying to point out when I posted about distillation of mercury in Ecuador, it is my point of view that we were operating as efficiently as possible with as little environmental impact as possible.

In Ecuador we just used mercury for the amalgamation. Are we to believe you added some additional chemistry or pretreatment to your feed before amalgamation and the edited PDF you posted is a partial description of your amalgamation process? A bit of explanation will go a long way towards members following some method with large chunks missing (edited out?) and seeing an actual method which we can discuss here and avoid any misconception.

4metals, Allow me to explain. The charging of Mercury did have some benefits in higher recovery. The Tree Huggers I was referring to were the Youtube patrons not here on this site. The Gain in gold is done by this little secret. When the pit is cut and now down to the paying gravel. Mercury is spread all around the pit on the ground. This mercury will drag on the ground picking up additional gold. The hydralicking begins with Jet men moving the gravel into a hole to a Merack man who controls the throttle of the gravel pump sucking up the gravel to the gravel pump then lastly to the sluice box. Apparently the jetting process will loss some gold in the process, this addition of mercury apparently grabs the gold, thusly more gold at the end of each pit. I would hope we in this forum be above censorship. However, we cannot erase history nor will any words of ours stop what is going on in the world by millions of Artisanal Miners today. Yes, this subject may be sensitive to those who do not use mercury, but again millions still use it today. If we know our history we used in America for decades.
P

 

[PeterM]

This one baffles me a bit. It just seems like a shopping list for refining related chemicals.
Have you seen what you posted?
Did you post the wrong pdf?
This many units of this and this many units of that, nothing about mercury and amalgamation???

These are formulas used and sold today to charge Mercury for the Amalgamation process. Mercury must be cleaned and charged when being constantly used otherwise it will not work as it had. The CLS are Ore Leaching formulas and the MCC are formulas for Mercury amalgamation.

 

[FrugalRefiner]

That helps.

Dave

 

[Shark]

Thanks for the explanation. While I most likely will never use it, I enjoy understanding how others do it in other parts of the world. To often much information (especially from YouTube) ends up being just enough to be harmful. I enjoy knowing a full method that could be helpful as well as safe. Cyanide for example has been used for many years and considered to be dangerous by many, yet full understanding has shown that it is safe when used correctly. I guess I am getting at knowing the correct way is way better than knowing only select bits and pieces of a method, especially if plans are to use that information. I have learned a lot from YouTube, and I have waded through tons of useless pieces to get that little bit of learning. Here I get the full picture more often and can ask questions until I am comfortable in thinking I could use that information if the need were to arise.

 

[4metals]

So to summarize, the MCC formulations were designed to charge the mercury which basically helps the mercury amalgamate when the surface of the gold is less than clean. In the situation I had in Ecuador, the mercury was cleaning off black sands which had been exposed to clean river water from a placer gold dredging operation. So the feed material was clean and the mercury I used was re-distilled before re-use.

In other applications the MCC formulations are obviously more important. The question is simple, are the different formulations more effective with different types of soil, river bottom, or hosed off a bank soils. The ratio’s of the reagents are listed to the left and the note by weight indicates they are a ratio to use with an unspecified quantity of mercury. So the question is what formulation is most effective in what type of soil to achieve the best “charged mercury” for amalgamation?

 

[PeterM]

So to summarize, the MCC formulations were designed to charge the mercury which basically helps the mercury amalgamate when the surface of the gold is less than clean. In the situation I had in Ecuador, the mercury was cleaning off black sands which had been exposed to clean river water from a placer gold dredging operation. So the feed material was clean and the mercury I used was re-distilled before re-use.

In other applications the MCC formulations are obviously more important. The question is simple, are the different formulations more effective with different types of soil, river bottom, or hosed off a bank soils. The ratio’s of the reagents are listed to the left and the note by weight indicates they are a ratio to use with an unspecified quantity of mercury. So the question is what formulation is most effective in what type of soil to achieve the best “charged mercury” for amalgamation?

4metals Just like there are many different people on this earth, and there are many different types of Iron ores, and there is not one size that fits all when it comes to amalgamation. That is because of the different complexes nature makes free gold is not exactly the most common found and mined. There are many things that could stop the gold from presenting itself. Manganese would be 1, Silica would be 2, Chromium would be 3, Tin would be 4. Sulfur would be 5 etc. I only can say this because I have done many years of research to prove it. Unfortunately in North America free gold deposits are becoming smaller and smaller. However Alaska and the Yukon are still hanging in there but seeing only about 100 days of mining season per year for alluvial. That is why I chose South America and Africa. Lastly, I have no longer use mercury even on complex ores but depend upon Chemical roasts acid/alkaline depending upon the ore and it's behavior to accomplish the same goal.
P

 

[PeterM]

That helps.

Dave

Dave, if for any reason if we started out on a crossed path through language, it was not my intention. You have a good thing here and I respect that.
P

 

[FrugalRefiner]

No problem. I just didn't understand your post and the attachment. The title was mercury amalgamation formulas, but the attachment didn't mention anything about mercury. Since I only used mercury for amalgamation one time in my life, I didn't recognize the purpose of the formulae in the attachment. Once you explained it, I understand.

Dave

 

[4metals]

Peter,

Thank you for your clarifications. As moderators here, one thing we strive to do is make threads easier to understand as we have members processing both ore and anything else containing precious metals so we have many areas of interest. And we have learned, often from members admitting to mini disasters while processing, that any instructions on methodology, coherently explained, is valuable to our members.

Thank you for filling in the blanks, making this thread a learning opportunity for some of our members. If you ever feel obliged to again discuss your experiences, your participation will be welcomed.

 

[PeterM]

Thanks for the explanation. While I most likely will never use it, I enjoy understanding how others do it in other parts of the world. To often much information (especially from YouTube) ends up being just enough to be harmful. I enjoy knowing a full method that could be helpful as well as safe. Cyanide for example has been used for many years and considered to be dangerous by many, yet full understanding has shown that it is safe when used correctly. I guess I am getting at knowing the correct way is way better than knowing only select bits and pieces of a method, especially if plans are to use that information. I have learned a lot from YouTube, and I have waded through tons of useless pieces to get that little bit of learning. Here I get the full picture more often and can ask questions until I am comfortable in thinking I could use that information if the need were to arise.

While Nevada produces > 5 Million ounces of Gold and 8M in Silver per year via the NaCN leach, it proves to be the best extractive chemical.

 

[Yggdrasil]

These are formulas used and sold today to charge Mercury for the Amalgamation process. Mercury must be cleaned and charged when being constantly used otherwise it will not work as it had. The CLS are Ore Leaching formulas and the MCC are formulas for Mercury amalgamation.

Thanks for the clarification, it makes sense now

 

[Flying Farmer]

In the '80's I was extracting placer gold from a river in Ecuador and we cleaned up all of our black sands with mercury to concentrate the gold. Mercury was widely available in 10kg dewars (which is what they called the stainless steel containers it came in). I brought with me, from the US, a mercury still and used it to recover the mercury by distillation. The amalgam was collected and squeezed through chamois cloth to squeeze out most of the liquid mercury for reuse. The amalgam which still contained some mercury was distilled to collect the balance of the mercury.

Most of those I met down there did not use a still, they squeezed out the mercury and melted the remaining amalgam. This drove off the mercury (not good) and resulted in bars of dorè gold.

I remember being quite happy that, after months on site, I returned to the supplier where I got the mercury and he threw it on the scale and said it was full. I remember he said something like I thought you were looking for gold, why didn't you use the mercury. I went back to our Land Rover and brought out the still for him to see and told him it recycles the mercury. He wasn't impressed because he made his money selling mercury not recycling it. I'm sure he sold that dewar as a new cylinder!

Where does one sell Mercury?