# How I improved my assay 15-20 times over Fire Assay



## PeterM (Jan 17, 2016)

I have done esoteric chemistry for about 40 years now on complex ores. There are many things you can do that will improve your TRUE assay of your ore. One of them is the utilization of tube type generated UV Ozone. If one would actually be patient and follow a US Patent, it's possible you could do as I have, and get far better results. Go to: http://www.google.com/patents/US4642134 and download this PDF. Unfortunately, so many of you out there are looking for a Silver Bullet to make your fortune from your ore. It has been my experience that gold is all around us but most commonly overlooked. Extracting gold from green ores is an art, extracting gold from vanilla ore is a no brainer. If you truly seek it, it will come to you.


----------



## solar_plasma (Jan 17, 2016)

esoteric...


----------



## Anonymous (Jan 17, 2016)

There is a valid point made by Peter here Bjorn.

Greenstone ores can be fire assayed and show great yields however processing those ores to get the gold is a completely different matter because of HOW the gold is present in greenstone.... 8) 8) 

Jon

Edit: My reply looked a bit cryptic there and that wasn't the intention. What colour is Gold Chloride that is contaminated with copper? 8) 8)


----------



## PeterM (Jan 17, 2016)

spaceships said:


> There is a valid point made by Peter here Bjorn.
> 
> Greenstone ores can be fire assayed and show great yields however processing those ores to get the gold is a completely different matter because of HOW the gold is present in greenstone.... 8) 8)
> 
> ...



Spaceships, while by Google definition of Esoteric is: intended for or likely to be understood by only a small number of people with a specialized knowledge or interest. 

While throughout my life I done over 10K wet chemical and fire assays. There would be only handful of times I have ever encountered an ore the would fire assay as good as an ore that was subject to a series of prior chemical pretreatments. It's much like reducing the interference first is the prerequisite. 
In the Western US there are plenty of these ores that simply will not fire assay straight up. There are numerous reasons for that, if the material contains Re, C,Se, Te and even Si itself it can throw off the fire assay just to name a few, but there are more reasons as well.
That facts are that there are very few "free gold" deposits left in the US. Largely what is left are mostly Complex ores that have to subjected to Pretreatments before the gold can be recovered or even recognized for that matter. Many an assayer has assayed an ore and had gotten a big hit, then suddenly couldn't repeat it except once every 10 times or more. The secret of recovering gold from a complex ore is basically like "pealing an onion". 
The days of just reading a book by Edward Bugbee is not going to make you or anyone an assayer of ores in todays Western United States climate, it requires the proper chemistry or indentification and extraction.


----------



## Reno Chris (Jan 17, 2016)

I am highly skeptical of this at best. Obtaining a patent does not require that the method actually work and be worthwhile. Many patents cover inventions that are completely pointless. 
So what chemical change would exposure to ozone induce in an ore that would make it fire assay properly? I cannot think of any, so let us know. 
Far too many talk about "complex ores" as a mysterious substance understood only by a small group of "illumanati" who have been enlightened. 
Such is nothing but a gigantic pile of BS. 
The assay of telluride and sulfide "complex" ores have been childs play to assayers for more than 150 years. 
Numerous things posted by the OP raise more than a few eyebrows. Ores that contain C are a problem to fire assay? In truth, some form of carbon is added to nearly all fire assays to reduce the litharge to metallic lead. Ores with Si are a problem? Silica is added to ores without a significant Si content to produce a good slag glass in a fire assay. Se is no problem to fire assays, it behaves much like sulfur, and is common in some silver ores as the mineral naumannite. Tellurium ores are also no problem to assay for competent assayers, and Rhenium is a rare element virtually never found in significant amounts in gold ores. 
Also in contradiction to what the OP says, most gold ores in the US are "free gold" ores - the great Carlin type ores are mostly oxidized and are merely crushed and leached with cyanide and require no pre-treatment whatsoever. The Carlin trend is the largest source of gold in the US. Most hot springs related ores are also free gold. Base metal ores with gold as a by-product are treated by smelting and the small amounts of gold are recovered in the process. 
"Complex" sulfide ores are not mysterious or poorly understood. They are easily worked and the values extracted - but it is more work and there fore a higher cost to get the values out. The only question is if the value of the ore justifies the additional work required to extract the values in the ore. 
Also erratic gold assays are quite common because of the nugget effect well known to many assayers and geologists. Very rarely are fire assays actually difficult, and in these cases it is most often the assayer who is not employing the right technique in assaying the ore.


----------



## NobleMetalWorks (Jan 17, 2016)

PeterM said:


> I have done esoteric chemistry for about 40 years now on complex ores.



This sounds more like "alchemy" to me. As a matter of fact, if we were only to consider the meaning of esoteric, it seems that whatever beliefs you hold true about chemistry in regards to it being esoteric, are not widely accepted nor considered nor practiced.

Are you suggesting that you have been conducting chemistry that is not widely accepted, known nor practiced, and have been doing so for about 40 years? I would be curious to know if you hold a degree in Chemistry, and what proof, after 40 years, you have that your occult form of chemistry actually works. Surely after 40 years in this field, you should possess volumes of hard core evidence that you can produce, so that those of us who practice normal, regular, proven chemistry might then recognize the value of your "esoteric chemistry".

When a search on Amazon is done on "esoteric chemistry" is done on Amazon, these are the books that search produces:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias=stripbooks&field-keywords=Esoteric+Chemistry

I prefer hard core evidence, empirical data and proof, not a willy-nilly concept that is touted by those who have an interest in the occult, or alchemy or magic, all which are related to "esoteric chemistry". Just the fact that you use this as the label you choose to promote your post sends red flags flying up the flagpole.



PeterM said:


> There are many things you can do that will improve your TRUE assay of your ore.



In some ores, not all, and not in most but rather very few. This is not something that would be suitable for almost all ore bodies. If you read about UV Ozone, it becomes evident that in most cases there is only a slight increase in the yield, which could be because of numerous reasons outside UV Ozone treatment. From what I have read, it's not cost effective to improve yield using this method on a large scale. Considering that on a small scale the return would not be dramatic at all, this seems like a novel, yet not cost effective way of extracting gold and palladium from complex ore bodies.



PeterM said:


> One of them is the utilization of tube type generated UV Ozone. If one would actually be patient and follow a US Patent, it's possible you could do as I have, and get far better results. Go to: http://www.google.com/patents/US4642134 and download this PDF



What exactly have you done? You have provided no proof, only a link to a document that is questionable at best. Since you claim you have done this, I would imagine under normal circumstances that you would probably have taken many pictures, as proof considering the dubious nature of your claim. Not only that, but if you truly have been conducting "esoteric chemistry" for 40 years, specially in regards to precious metals and using methods like UV Ozone, you would also have had complex ores assayed using traditional methods pre-treatment as well as your claimed method of pre-treatment, so you can prove side by side comparisons. If not, what would lead you to believe you get any better results using UV Ozone as opposed to other methods? If you have not done side by side comparisons, all your claims, whatever they might be, should be rigorously tested until you have accumulated enough hard data, empirical proof that your claims are real, and true. So please, if you would, provide the data I am suggesting you should possess for us to review. 



PeterM said:


> Unfortunately, so many of you out there are looking for a Silver Bullet to make your fortune from your ore.



It seems you are offering this information as if it was a "silver bullet". If not, then what specific types of complex ores have you personally used this technology on, and produced the "far better results" from? And again, since you claim "far better results" I would like to see the side by side comparison that would be required in order to make a claim such as this. Unless you have done side by side tests, there is no way you could claim "far better results".



PeterM said:


> It has been my experience that gold is all around us but most commonly overlooked.



Of course gold is all around us, it's used in electronics, in your cell phone, in jewelry, medicine, gold leaf, plating, etc etc etc. But I don't think that is what you are eluding to or suggesting. If we were to talk about gold in sea water, sure, there is an estimated 70 million tons in sea water, but it's not feasible using today's technology to extract it in a cost effective manor. Since you have claimed it's your experience that gold is all around us, can you provide that information here for our review? How is it your experience has exposed to you, all this gold that is all around us, that everyone else misses? To make a claim like this, specially in regards to your personal experience, you must have proof of this. What kind of experience do you have that would lead you to believe that gold is all around us, that we are missing?



PeterM said:


> Extracting gold from green ores is an art, extracting gold from vanilla ore is a no brainer. If you truly seek it, it will come to you.



I am not sure what exactly you mean by "green ores". I would assume you mean copper ores, but if not please explain what it is you mean by "green ores". Extracting gold from copper ores is not difficult, and certainly does not take any artistic ability. The definition of art is thus:



> the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.



So what creative skill and/or imagination does it take to extract gold from green ores using UV Ozone? When extracted, does a painting or sculpture magically appear that you had some part in creating on purpose? Are you producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power? I personally believe that the extraction of gold from complex ores is a science rather than art. I might be led to believe that smelting is a craft, or applying chemistry and doing so in a way that exceeds most peoples abilities might be called a craft. But certainly not art. I do create art from some of the metals I extract/recover and refine, but I certainly would not call extracting gold an art, perhaps craft but certainly not an art form. Maybe the different colors created by different solutions could be called art, or maybe when you expose certain metals to gases produced by dissolving metals in acids, as I do with some metals to give them a patina, could be called art. But not gold recovery or refining. 

You have made several claims yet provided no proof, no evidence only your dubious statements. If this is something you believe rather than have actually done yourself, then I would expect no proof, however if you have done what you have claimed you should be able to provide proof of this, and whatever information related so that we might understand better, be able to reproduce your results and know what you state is true. Extracting gold is not a belief, no matter how fervently you might believe something it's only a belief until you can provide proof. If by "esoteric chemistry" you mean something based in alchemy or the occult, then you have posted on a forum where it's members do not put up with that type of nonsense, and you might serve your purpose better and receive a positive response from a site that deals with the belief in the occult, or magic or alchemy.

You also claim in your posts title to have improved your assay numbers by 15-20 times over fire assay. Since UV Ozone is a pre-treatment, and not an assay, I would like to know how you improved your assay. What technique are you using, since you suggest your technique is different than fire assay. And if you truly have discovered or developed some assay method that proves values in order of magnitude of 15-20 times over fire assay, then please, again, provide proof of this by producing side by side examples of the same complex ore. In order to make this claim, you would have to have done side by side comparisons. I would be thrilled if you could prove just a 2 time increase over fire assay, as that would mean double the amount of reported gold than a fire assay. But claiming 15-20 times more seems utterly outside the realm of what is real. If a fire assay reported nothing, and a pre-treatment and whatever method you used to extract the gold for a novel assay proved any values, that would still only be a 1 time improvement. Are you suggesting that if a fire assay proved out 1 gram per ton of gold, then your method would prove 15 or 20 grams? Or if the ore proved 2 grams, that your method would prove out 30-40 grams? I assume when you state "15-20 times" you actually mean 1 x 15/20. If not, can you rephrase your subject title to reflect what you truly mean? Your claim seems utterly outside the realm of what every other method might be able to claim. That seems very unlikely to me.

If you do have proof, and are able to post in here, specifically on your own experience, data you have collected, equipment you have built then please provide proof and evidence. I would be more than happy to apologize for my skepticism in this thread if you can do so. If not, I expect you will not respond.

I await your response.

Scott


----------



## PeterM (Jan 17, 2016)

Gentlemen, I didn't come here to debate. it's already obvious to me that there are a few doubters our there as well. Again, if you follow the patent to the letter and I wish you would, results will follow I have. 
I will say this though, the day you stop listening, is the day you stop learning. Discoveries are made each and everyday and will continue long after we're dead and gone. I have had the pleasure to have know two of the men in that patent. Both to whom has made themselves wealthy from their knowledge. I wish you two luck.
P


----------



## NobleMetalWorks (Jan 18, 2016)

PeterM said:


> Gentlemen, I didn't come here to debate. it's already obvious to me that there are a few doubters our there as well. Again, if you follow the patent to the letter and I wish you would, results will follow I have.
> I will say this though, the day you stop listening, is the day you stop learning. Discoveries are made each and everyday and will continue long after we're dead and gone. I have had the pleasure to have know two of the men in that patent. Both to whom has made themselves wealthy from their knowledge. I wish you two luck.
> P



It is also obvious to you that the people here are very serious about what we do? Is it obvious to you, that everything should be questioned and not blindly believed, specially when the claims made are so far outside the realm of what we know, as to not seem plausible?

I'm listening, but just because I am listening does not mean I should also follow suit by blindly believing, specially when you statements are not backed up by any proof, or evidence. You have provided nothing substantial in the way of proof.

I certainly wouldn't invest the money to purchase the equipment necessary to build something that is not proven, not unless I was doing research and development, and even then there would be a series of tests to prove the direction I should move in. I also wouldn't believe something based on what someone has stated, yet has provided no proof or evidence of that I do not know and has a very short history on this site. You cannot seriously be suggesting that people should incur the cost to build out what the patent suggests, without first knowing that this method has value and merit in the way you have stated. That is just crazy.

Again, please, provide proof. I am keeping an open mind, and have stated those things in your post that might cause me to seriously doubt your claims, yet you provide nothing and refer once again to an obscure patent. You claim to have done this, show the proof. You claim to have made the equipment, prove it, show pictures, show assays and side by side comparisons.

Keeping an open mind does not mean believing what just anyone might claim. Consider my signature, the quote by Carl Sagan, I truly believe that quote and try to live by it. In the spirit of following that quote, provide something tangible that would back up your statements, or don't. But you certainly cannot expect anyone to believe your fantastic claims without providing evidence. You are avoiding doing so, and for no reason I can fathom but could only guess.

Scott


----------



## Grelko (Jan 18, 2016)

spaceships said:


> What colour is Gold Chloride that is contaminated with copper? 8) 8)



Nice work avoiding this question. :lol:


----------



## Irons (Jan 18, 2016)

Peeling the onion.

The ores that I've worked with tend to be highly oxidized. Trying to chemically oxidized them even more tends to release a lot of nasties. Ruthenium is the worst culprit. You have to have inhaled Ruthenium Tetroxide to appreciate how bad it is. Osmium Is another bad actor.

The 'Oxidation Zone' in an ore body can be a misnomer. It should really be called the reduction zone.

There's still plenty of PMs to be found. 

Pre-treatment works. I call it Pre-fining. :mrgreen:


----------



## g_axelsson (Jan 18, 2016)

People, listen to Reno Chris and Scott, theirs is the voice of reason.

As Chris points out, there is no requirement to show a working process to get a patent.

To me this sounds very close to alchemy and makes me think of various mining scam with unassayable ores. Anyone involved with or wanting to invest in and mining gold ores should read this report.
ARIZONA MINING SCAMS AND UNASSAYABLE ORE PROJECTS OF THE LATE 20TH CENTURY

To make a blank statement that a pre-treatment with ozone would increase results from an assay with 15-20 times would tell me the assayer in the first place wasn't making a good job at all.

I'm not saying that ore in it self doesn't need pre-treatment to release the gold. Everything we do until smelting or refining can be seen as a pre-treatment. 
Flotation, crushing, milling, roasting, gravitational concentration and so on. But an assay should, if done properly, give as close as possible answer to the question of how much gold there is in a sample. If fire assay regularly would give results of only 5-7% of the real gold content it would have been found out by this time on a large scale and a better method, for example wet chemistry methods with atom absorption would have taken over by this time... and that hasn't happened. Fire assay is still widely used for assaying ores.

As a moderator I'm allowing this discussion to remain as there are several wise men that spoke up with reason and experience.

Göran


----------



## g_axelsson (Jan 18, 2016)

Irons said:


> Peeling the onion.
> 
> The ores that I've worked with tend to be highly oxidized. Trying to chemically oxidized them even more tends to release a lot of nasties. Ruthenium is the worst culprit. You have to have inhaled Ruthenium Tetroxide to appreciate how bad it is. Osmium Is another bad actor.
> 
> ...


Hi Irons, nice to have you back again on the forum. I hope the summer was good.

In what way are you pre-treating the ores?

I would love to hear a bit more details about your operation. Maybe in a separate thread some time?

Göran


----------



## Lou (Jan 18, 2016)

Sounds like you contaminated your assay sample and thought the ozone improved the extractability.

How's about this, as you've got nil in the way of credibility so far as I'm concerned...

Produce an excel spreadsheet showing the type of ore, the method of analysis, all conditions etc. and change only the pretreatment with ozone and run it in quadruplicate, check your lead, check your proofs, post the method, embed some photos and convince people here.
This should be no problem if you've actually done any assaying, as anyone who does it for a living knows, having a nice spreadsheet program to do all the number crunching and statistics makes life a lot easier. 

*I will acknowledge that pretreatment of materials before assay is entirely appropriate, but a 15-20X increase is a claim which must be substantiated. So back it up or back it off. *

Assaying is all about context. Most large assay labs doing this for real use WD-XRF (usually under He purge to quant. light elements) to quantify impurities on new feedstocks that may cause issues, run a trial, run proofs, etc.

Most anything precious metals, rare earth, or refractory metals is what I call esoteric chemistry simply because there are more people doing operations on brains than there are hard core PGM chemists, for instance.


----------



## jeneje (Jan 18, 2016)

Peter, I have a question for you? Have you ever visited an assay lab in Utah? The reason I ask is one of our members (cnbarr) was telling me about a man that came to there lab in Utah claiming basically the same thing as you and after three-days was run off buy upper management because he could not prove what he was saying.

This person was trying to get there clients and finally the clients realized he was full BS. 

Well,,, anyways,,, good luck!

Ken


----------



## PeterM (Jan 18, 2016)

Ken no. Listen, to me what I used and tried and had worked is old technology put out in 1987, I used it then when it was fresh back then. The point is if you can get the ORP up to 1.5 - 1.9mv. the ore will expand and become available to your leach liquor to attack. 
I've spent time on the procedure, it worked for me but the big picture is what I learned by doing it and expanding upon it. I and my partner used to own a large private research lab in Las Vegas for 10 years. That being said, I've learned to outdo what that technology provided me to do. Every invention can be improved upon with time and money. At that time I was also doing a lot of karat gold scrap that provided me the income to sustain such a lab. In answering your question, no, I have idea who the man from Utah was but, he's not in our loop. No relation, sorry.
P


----------



## Reno Chris (Jan 20, 2016)

The need for oxidation of some materials to be assayed properly has been well understood for 150 years and assayers have long had methods like the addition of Nitrates to the flux, scorification, roasting of samples, etc. to deal with that problem and no new technology is needed. Using ozone (O3) instead of oxygen (O2) to oxidize an ore is an expensive and totally unnecessary method as other, much cheaper means using oxygen have been proven over and over to work just fine, and they have been cross checked with standard and accepted chemical analysis methods like XRF and mass spectrometry, not things designated as "esoteric" and unrecognized by the industry. 
I read through the patent referenced by the OP, and nothing in the patent actually demonstrates that ozone can accomplish oxidation that cannot be done with oxygen, it merely claims oxidation with ozone is faster. Even to really push the reaction to proceed at acceptable rates with ozone, its necessary that the sample be in slurry form, and to heat the sample slurry to near boiling temperatures. Heating a sample to higher temperatures dry (ie., roasting), and using oxygen can oxidize the minerals as fast or even faster. 
The claim of such a large increase seems to be based on use of wrong methods for the initial testing - so if you take an ore sample rich in sulfides and assay it using methods meant for well oxidized, sulfide free ores, you will get an inaccurate, very low reading results. If you take the same sample and oxidize it or use standard methods which are correct for a sulfide rich ore sample, you will get accurate, much higher, results. This is nothing new or esoteric - nor does it bring out some sort of "hidden" value. Its just well understood, basic chemistry and standard assay techniques.


----------



## Lou (Jan 20, 2016)

I'm with you, Chris. 

I certainly agree ozone is better than oxygen in oxidizing power. So is fluorine! Both O3 and F2 are quite dangerous. 

In any event, some materials need reduced. A good example is catalytic converter analysis...some prefer a peroxide fusion, some prefer total digestion (that is me); and that's after pre-reduction of the material to make the Pd/Rh more soluble. 

It's all context and comes down to thoroughly characterizing your sample. There are often many ways to skin the cat, but not all of them are as better/faster/cheaper and usually there's a compromise on at least one of those.


----------



## Irons (Jan 20, 2016)

There is no question in my mind about the science. One cannot recover something that isn't there. The 'Art' is how the scientific methods are arranged in the process to arrive at an acceptable result.

As I told someone, many Years ago: Anyone can buy Paint. That doesn't make one an Artist.


----------



## Platdigger (Jan 21, 2016)

Boy, you got that right.


----------



## PeterM (Jan 21, 2016)

Irons, you got that right, stay on your course. Your a do'er Irons, not a talker, that's what I like about you.

Randy, sorry I got busy yesterday leaving for back home later today, we'll talk this weekend Thanks Platdigger!!!!


----------



## Geo (Jan 21, 2016)

Ormus gold, monoatomic gold, premature gold, philosophers stone, it all sounds like a Harry Potter story to me. Maybe I should call it a ghost story. A ghost story is something you hear but never actually see with your own eyes. I have seen gold that people swore wasn't there because they couldn't see it but it was just that my eyes were better than theirs. If someone gets or got rich from some secret process to get gold, more power to them. I am being honest here, if I accidentally turn lead into gold, none of you would ever hear from me again. Not because I was greedy and didn't want to share, but because I would be too busy soaking up the sun on my private island with a beauty on each arm so I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to type the message. Oh well, in the words of my super hero, money never goes looking for people.


----------



## Irons (Jan 23, 2016)

g_axelsson said:


> Irons said:
> 
> 
> > Peeling the onion.
> ...



Thanks Goran. A good Summer and still working when I can. 

Pre-Treatment depends on the Ore I'm working with. There's no magic, unless one wants to call it Alchemy. That's where the 'Art' comes into play. 8)


----------



## RogueGeochemist (Feb 1, 2022)

PeterM said:


> I have done esoteric chemistry for about 40 years now on complex ores. There are many things you can do that will improve your TRUE assay of your ore. One of them is the utilization of tube type generated UV Ozone. If one would actually be patient and follow a US Patent, it's possible you could do as I have, and get far better results. Go to: US4642134A - Precious metal recovery using UV ozone - Google Patents and download this PDF. Unfortunately, so many of you out there are looking for a Silver Bullet to make your fortune from your ore. It has been my experience that gold is all around us but most commonly overlooked. Extracting gold from green ores is an art, extracting gold from vanilla ore is a no brainer. If you truly seek it, it will come to you.


Can you recommend a tube (UV?) type ozone generator? Or describe the one you use? I have the material from Alaska that was assayed in the patent. It won't expand in a corona discharge ozone generator unless its taken basic (spinels).


----------



## PeterM (Feb 9, 2022)

RogueGeochemist said:


> Can you recommend a tube (UV?) type ozone generator? Or describe the one you use? I have the material from Alaska that was assayed in the patent. It won't expand in a corona discharge ozone generator unless its taken basic (spinels).


I used UV type but spark type could work. This method only works on specific ores. read the patent. However, if you have Alaska Black sands, write me I may be interested in the material if I could test it, as I have a process that is black sands specific on complexes. My email is [email protected] as I am located in Southern Nevada. Include your phone number and best time to call.


----------

