# Mercury Sluice



## Sunwell (Mar 12, 2022)

I’m wondering if anyone has experience with density separation with mercury. I’ve started plans for a mercury sluice to run around 400 lbs of mercury in a iron tank that will have a recirculating all plastic pump that helps move material over the surface into a skimming tank. While all being ran underwater with a 10% surfactant solution. 

I’ll then pull off test material from the skimming tank with a dewatering screw. 

My theory behind building the mercury sluice is that lighter material should float off and any metallic impurities imbedded in any fine sands should amalgam out and sink the the bottom.

There’s a lot of magnesium in my ore so sulfuric acid soaks just dissolve the gold since the magnesium oxidation.

Beyond the chemical worries, and mercloric oxide inhalation (Should be solved by water submersion what are some recovery concerns as this method to me should yield a high recovery rate regardless of ore type.


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## galenrog (Mar 12, 2022)

You should be asking questions at prospecting and mining forums. There are a few hundred out there.

Since you plan to use mercury, what are your plans for hazardous wastes? Everything you propose in your post generates hazardous waste. Be detailed.

Personally, you should study what fully permitted operations do, not the backyard amateurs.

Time for more coffee.


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## Sunwell (Mar 12, 2022)

Indeed, I plan to store the amalgamations separate under water and then the dewatered tailings I’ll store in a 50gal barrel. Later on I’ll roast the dewatered tailings to see if I can distill any left over mercury out.


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## goldshark (Mar 13, 2022)

Good plan on retorting the tails. Mercury catches an incredible amount of clean, fine gold. Best option is to throw it in a ball mill to clean the surface well. The addition of some sodium hydroxide will help clean the gold, and act as a surfactant. The problem with mercury clean ups is that some mercury is always lost to a partical attachment that doesn't either find it's way to the surface of the plate, or doesn't get caught in the mercury trap. Also retorting doesn't always vaporize off all the mercury. Talings disposal should go to a HM site.


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## kurtak (Mar 13, 2022)

Sunwell said:


> I’m wondering if anyone has experience with density separation with mercury. I’ve started plans for a mercury sluice to run *around 400 lbs of mercury in a iron tank* that will have a recirculating all plastic pump that helps move material over the surface into a skimming tank. While all being ran underwater with a 10% surfactant solution.


First - don't let the federal &/or Oregon state EPA get wind of your plans - it will cost you *BIG TIME !!!*

Second - there are *MUCH* better ways to recover even the finest of gold from ores then using mercury

Third - sounds like a pathway to ending up with "mad hatters disease"

read about mad hatters disease here ------------









Erethism - Wikipedia







en.wikipedia.org





Kurt


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## justinhcase (Mar 13, 2022)

Reminds me of tales from my first teacher, Mr White, and how they developed mercury wave tanks for flash memory.
They stopped for the highly toxic side effects.
The benefits are sometimes not worth the cost.


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## kurtak (Mar 13, 2022)

goldshark said:


> The problem with mercury clean ups is that some mercury is always lost to a partical attachment that doesn't either find it's way to the surface of the plate, or doesn't get caught in the mercury trap. Also retorting doesn't always vaporize off all the mercury.


It is for these very reasons that mercury is no longer used in gold recovery (other then third world counties)

they are also the very reason it will cost you BIG TIME if the fed &/or state EPA gets wind of it

they are also the reasons why sooner or later you are likely to end up with mad hatters disease

Kurt


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## justinhcase (Mar 13, 2022)

kurtak said:


> they are also the reasons why sooner or later you are likely to end up with mad hatters disease
> 
> Kurt


That would kind of explain at least 50% of the post's on this forum.
Mercury is in all electronic waste, along with arsenic lead and thallium, just not quite as apparent as in other waste.
People seem to forget this.


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## cosmetal (Mar 13, 2022)

Very bad idea.

Please study about methylmercury; It is a bioaccumulative environmental toxicant that is created in water environments. 

I suction dredged the California creeks/rivers for many years and was totally against the CA ban on suction dredging until I researched the use of mercury by the Gold Rush miners. We dredgers would always say we were helping clean up the waterways as our dredges would catch mercury in our sluice riffles. But, unfortunately, it does not catch any methylmercury which has originated from the physical mercury and the metal's continued fragmentation by physical agitation. That fragmentation can create a mercury "mist" (smaller and smaller globules) that the aquatic life consumes and convert to methylmercury. 

I like to fish. But, now, I won't eat any fish caught within any waterways that were affected by the gold miner's hydraulic mining and its discharge.

James


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## justinhcase (Mar 13, 2022)

cosmetal said:


> Very bad idea.
> 
> Please study about methylmercury; It is a bioaccumulative environmental toxicant that is created in water environments.
> 
> ...











Karen Wetterhahn - Wikipedia







en.wikipedia.org


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## Alondro (Mar 13, 2022)

justinhcase said:


> Karen Wetterhahn - Wikipedia
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Dimethylmercury... one of the worst things chemistry can make.


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## orvi (Mar 13, 2022)

Big no from my point of wiew. In 21st century, we can do much better than that.
Mercury is the culprit in any way, all compounds are toxic, it is toxic in all states existing and biological byproducts of bacteria slowly metabolizing the mercury - methyl and dimethylmercury espetially - are insanely toxic and cumulative. Mercury poisoning develops steadily over time, it does not hurt from start, trust me. You won´t have any clue that something is going on.

If you have say "unsluicable" gold that is extremely fine, invest your time and research on something called flotation. This is how the industry operate to get extremely fine gold out of the ore.

Or invest your time to research proper cyanide leaching. Of course, cyanide is very toxic - but it can be neutralized relatively easily to form practically harmless byproducts. So you do not poison your neighborhood and "tailings dumping place" irreversibly. If you work in basic conditions and do not swallow or inhale/splash anything on you, you will be perfectly fine.

Do not go for this like folks in Brazil, Africa or Peru. You have much better possibilities to extract gold than with mercury. I know it is very appealing by it´s simplicity. But I guarantee you, that you cannot hide from the mercury. You can be extremely careful, take all precautions, separate and retort the cons... But think of every move you do. Opening a retort after "successful" distillation of mercury - there is still residual mercury vapor in the system, even that you left it cool down. Mercury could easily react with some pretty common components of cons to make toxic mercury compounds that get adsorbed on vast surface of tailings. These are just two, there are plenty more occasions where you can expose yourself.

Health is much more valuable than few ounces of gold you will get by this outdated and dirty method.


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## VK3NHL (Mar 13, 2022)

I couldn’t help but post this..

A while ago I watched a VERY DISTURBING YouTube video of Cody’s from Cody’s Lab, where he claimed Mercury was harmless then proceeded to fill His mouth with a few pounds of Mercury & squirted it through His teeth.. 
In another Stupid Video drank Cyanide to see what it tasted like 
I unfortunately don’t think he’s long for this world.
In my opinion these type of videos SHOULD be taken down.

Tony


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## goldshark (Mar 14, 2022)

In our modern world, there are a host of toxins everyway we turn. I have a friend who turns pottery. She was recently diagnosed with acute Aluminum toxicity. Just from handling high Alumina clays. The world loves a green, weed free lawn, and distributes Round Up liberally. An anti mining attorney for an environmental group, uses the stuff frequently on his lawn. The misuse of chemicals due either to ignorance, or disregard for it's consequences, is one of my major pet peeves. Talking about it on this forum is in my opinion, a very good way to spread information about the pros and cons of our actions.


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## Stibnut (Mar 14, 2022)

VK3NHL said:


> I couldn’t help but post this..
> 
> A while ago I watched a VERY DISTURBING YouTube video of Cody’s from Cody’s Lab, where he claimed Mercury was harmless then proceeded to fill His mouth with a few pounds of Mercury & squirted it through His teeth..
> In another Stupid Video drank Cyanide to see what it tasted like
> ...


He's been doing this sort of thing for years now and doesn't seem to have neurological symptoms yet, although I'm sure it's just a matter of time with the way he treats mercury. He gets away with it (for now) because room temperature elemental mercury is of pretty low toxicity; its vapor pressure is low and the metal by itself has extremely low bioavailablity if ingested. There was even a case of a suicide attempt where someone injected herself with mercury - she survived with some lung damage due to a mercury embolism but no systemic mercury poisoning. 

That said though, he also distills mercury in a fairly crude retort where he's no doubt getting exposed to a lot more vapor, and he once filled a toilet with hundreds of pounds of mercury and flushed it, which is a good way to aerosolize it and maximize vapor production. It's too bad he's so reckless because he's a very interesting and entertaining Youtuber, definitely one of my favorite chemistry channels leaving aside safety concerns.


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## justinhcase (Mar 14, 2022)

Stibnut said:


> He's been doing this sort of thing for years now and doesn't seem to have neurological symptoms yet, although I'm sure it's just a matter of time with the way he treats mercury. He gets away with it (for now) because room temperature elemental mercury is of pretty low toxicity; its vapor pressure is low and the metal by itself has extremely low bioavailablity if ingested. There was even a case of a suicide attempt where someone injected herself with mercury - she survived with some lung damage due to a mercury embolism but no systemic mercury poisoning.
> 
> That said though, he also distills mercury in a fairly crude retort where he's no doubt getting exposed to a lot more vapor, and he once filled a toilet with hundreds of pounds of mercury and flushed it, which is a good way to aerosolize it and maximize vapor production. It's too bad he's so reckless because he's a very interesting and entertaining Youtuber, definitely one of my favorite chemistry channels leaving aside safety concerns.


Strange, he had to take down his tutorial on homemade nitroglycerin.
Can't think why YouTube did that.
His efforts with yellow cake uranium probably got him on a watch list of some sort.
On the whole an important public service having someone else preform these things in a suitable isolated location.
In the UK you would be put away for a very long-time for some of his demonstrations.
Such a nice liberal society you have over there.


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## Lou (Mar 14, 2022)

Unfortunately, I think we ran Cody off of here a while back.

@Sunwell, what's wrong with using one of those Icon centrifuges? they're supposed to get 99% of stuff down to 600 mesh. 

On a slightly related store, there once was an old emeritus prof at Brown University who threw back a shot glass of mercury on a bet with a younger chemistry professor. If I recall correctly (heard the story from a buddy), he proceeded to collect it out the tail pipe in relatively short fashion and it weighed up near spot on. Just how spot on it was was never conveyed to me.

Its high surface tension, relative nobility to acids when free of its oxide, and ready excretion from the kidneys make it relatively safe in metallic form. The salts however, and the organocomplexed stuff made by bacteria...whole 'nother level of nasty!

A few years back I was out in the middle of no where on the WY/SD border. It was out in the Black Hills far away from reliably paved roads and in the middle of a canyon that looked like when it flooded it was probably a meat grinder of logs and boulders. There was like 4' of snow in places. This was helicopter in and out type situation. We were looking for tin and tantalum. Every thing we found though was amalgamated gold from probably 120-140 years before in the gold rush that had happened. Hg is persistent in the environment. *Don't be part of the problem!*


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## FrugalRefiner (Mar 14, 2022)

When I was a kid, my dad worked as a maintenance machinist at a Ford Motor assembly plant. From time to time, an ignitron (high amperage rectifiers) would fail. He drained the mercury from several and brought it home for my brother and I to play with. We'd dump some of the mercury out on the kitchen table, bust the big beads into little beads, then push them back together and watch them join back into big beads. Good fun for a kid back in the 60s and 70s.

I used some to make a thermostat for my chicken egg incubator for a science project in junior high school. Used more for a barometer I made in high school. Kept it in my bedroom for years.

I don't tell that story often because it could cause some to be complacent about the hazards of the stuff. Fascinatingly dense. As Lou said, in metallic form, and kept in a sealed bottle, it's pretty safe. I still have a bottle out in the barn. Never know when I might need it.

Dave


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## orvi (Mar 14, 2022)

There are numerous levels where we could discuss this topic.

As a student, I have the opportunity to go through polarography analysis in lab course. Year after, it was excluded from the schedule due to mercury use. Mercury is fascinating element, I cannot deny this. Dripping the mercury from the reservoir through very very thin cappilary tube - using the drops of it as electrode. Against standard calomel electrode... Such an irony  old guys were clever, they knew what they are doing from the point of results. But in 40´s and 50´s, something like safety concerns practically does not existed. 

_One very famous organic chemist, Gattermann, encouraged his students to smoke cigarettes in lab during working with liquid hydrogen cyanide  If there was major leakige in the hood or apparatus, bitter taste on your tongue warned you that you are very quickly poisoning yourself and you should immediately leave the room._
Two things that are completely out of "sane" level today... Smoking in the lab, and use liquid HCN for synthesis in lab... Yet encouraged in early 20.century, now we know better and this is a no go 

Back to the Cody´s channel, I understand his pragmatic look on the subject. He also do these experiments outside, while wind is blowing from opposite direction, so paired with relatively low vapor pressure of mercury at room temperature, there isn´t clearly very much space to breathe that much of it. But unintentionally, he spread this skewed look to the whole world, millions of people watching his videos. To the people who really do not see all the dangers.
When you think about retorting significant ammount of cons in some steel drum after milling the stuff with awful lot of it... It is impossible to get it out perfectly. There will be mercury still left in the stuff in who knows what form. 
I am hobby prospector for like 5 years, and I found numerous places, where placer and hard rock gold was mined back in medieval ages. There is mercury everywhere, sometimes more than half of the flakes are white from the mercury. Few times, I even panned small beads of it - and I was angry because it glued up all other pieces together.
The mercury was sitting there for centuries. And it will be sitting there for even more. Slowly converting to oxides and methylmercury with help of bacteria. Every river drain the mercury contamination to the ocean. It slowly cumulates in living organisms, and nobody ever will be able to pull it back.

If you drink shot of mercury, it probably does nothing terrible to you from the perspective of health - this one time thing. Except of the explosive diarrhea minute after you commit this decision  But in mining, and espetially processing of the ore, you will be exposed to much worse doses of vapors, and possibly mercury compounds. And this is nowhere the sane level.


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## goldshark (Mar 15, 2022)

justinhcase said:


> Strange, he had to take down his tutorial on homemade nitroglycerin.
> Can't think why YouTube did that.
> His efforts with yellow cake uranium probably got him on a watch list of some sort.
> On the whole an important public service having someone else preform these things in a suitable isolated location.
> ...


I don't know if you have searched youtube for " how to make nitroglycerin" lately, but I found at least 8 tutorials on how to make it. There is nothing wrong with asking any questions, for there are no dumb questions, usually only dumb answers. Dumb answers only get people killed, or hurt. Yellow cake is fairly easy to make, refining to metal is considerably more difficult. Anybody on here want to take the reins for us refiners? I like Cody's videos, and take them with a grain of salt. He does cover a lot of content, but still know he doesn't cover it all. That is the danger.


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## michelegray25 (Mar 15, 2022)

We watched Cody making uranium metal from ore today on Youtube. He actually said that he should have been safer in the video, so he knows he is putting himself at risk. I just hope that nobody copies what he is doing.


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## Stibnut (Mar 15, 2022)

justinhcase said:


> Strange, he had to take down his tutorial on homemade nitroglycerin.
> Can't think why YouTube did that.
> His efforts with yellow cake uranium probably got him on a watch list of some sort.
> On the whole an important public service having someone else preform these things in a suitable isolated location.
> ...


I've taught myself a significant fraction of the chemistry I know from home experiments, including making a few drops of my own nitroglycerin maybe 8 years ago. Not an experiment I ever plan on repeating, granted, and I learned a lesson about ear protection when I set off 3 drops with a hammer! I'm pretty happy to live in a place where I can access a variety of chemicals for my own tinkering - otherwise I wouldn't know much more than is in textbooks, my job, and school labs, none of which goes far enough for a hands-on learner like me. 

There are dangers involved and I do think Cody and other Youtube channels do a disservice when they disregard safety. Still, I'd much rather live in a world where people can still learn science on their own and at their own risk, than a world that's a tiny bit safer but where the only ways to learn experimental chemistry are in a university or a job.


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## Sunwell (Mar 19, 2022)

To clarify this experiment is not about the sluicing action more than it is about gravitational separation through the elementary topic of specific gravity. Mercury doesn't have a very good efficiency ratio at amalgamation, and again isn't really the true purpose of this experiment.

After some consideration I think a better route would be to use nuclear reactor coolant called LBE. LBE is lead-bismuth eutectic, and has a low melting point of around 255F. It has a density of around 10.5 cm3 which should filter out a lot of

At 10.5 cm3 we should separate all of the annoying metals such as impure silver, copper, nickel, cobalt, etc.

Since LBE doesn't begin off gassing until around 1650F this should provide for better safety, and should allow me to try different separation methods.

Now that we don't have Amalgamation on our side helping prevent surface tension issues I do believe that this solution will have to be slurried, or this might be solved by the LBE being molten. The concentrates could undergo a brief acid bath pre separation to remove any films that could cause flotation.

Most elements lose density with more heat because of the molecular separation, but since out melting point of LBE is so low we should avoid any of the concentrates dropping in value.


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## justinhcase (Mar 19, 2022)

I am sorry.
But does not gold and mercury share an intimate relationship.
Very readily, forming a gold and mercury amalgam almost instantly at a room temperature?
So I am somewhat dumbfounder at your suggestion to use it in gravity separation. 
That would necessitate all elements reaming separate in nature, while being sorted by their specific gravity.
That simply will not happen with mercury.
You will form an amalgam to start and eventually an alloy if you run it long enough.


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## Sunwell (Mar 19, 2022)

Yes exactly, I'm essentially using the elements specific gravity as a sift per se. Amalgams of lighter metals will wash away over the top, and amalgams of heavier metals, and heavier non amalgamable metals will fall below the surface of the mercury. Or heavier metals that are encapsulated, or are not able to be amalgamed due to oxidization from chlorides, oxides, sulfides, tellurides, etc. would also fall below the surface even though their host mineral such as pyrite may be lighter than the encapsulated metal. This would in theory be like a periodic table filter based on an elementary principal. 

Of course the amalgams would be dissolved off in sealed lab equipment with Aqua Regia, (I prefer the reverse equation 3:1 Nitric:Hydrochloric) as it's proven to have significantly higher yields with finer golds, and distill off the mercury.


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## galenrog (Mar 19, 2022)

I have a question. Where did you get the idea that this is both an effective and safe procedure for the recovery of gold? I used to know a few people in Jackson and Josephine Counties that used mercury extensively in gold recovery. All are now dead. Each suffered, to different degrees, and died of heavy metal poisoning from prolonged exposure to mercury.

Have fun with loss of kidney and liver function, early cognitive decline, and a host of other symptoms.

Time for more coffee.


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## justinhcase (Mar 20, 2022)

Sunwell said:


> Yes exactly, I'm essentially using the elements specific gravity as a sift per se. Amalgams of lighter metals will wash away over the top, and amalgams of heavier metals, and heavier non amalgamable metals will fall below the surface of the mercury. Or heavier metals that are encapsulated, or are not able to be amalgamed due to oxidization from chlorides, oxides, sulfides, tellurides, etc. would also fall below the surface even though their host mineral such as pyrite may be lighter than the encapsulated metal. This would in theory be like a periodic table filter based on an elementary principal.
> 
> Of course the amalgams would be dissolved off in sealed lab equipment with Aqua Regia, (I prefer the reverse equation 3:1 Nitric:Hydrochloric) as it's proven to have significantly higher yields with finer golds, and distill off the mercury.


The last thing you want in gravity separation is a "Viscus" medium to work with. Mercury would run over riffles much like a thick mud, contaminating everything it comes into contact with.
And the more metallic elements the mercury alloys with, the thicker it would become.
Light metals would not flow over the top, they would most likely simply stick to the surface.
There were a number of systems that used a mercury trap in conjunction with a sluice.
You can still easily tell where they were located in England by the very large spoil heaps left behind that are still too toxic to allow people to visit.
I am trying to get permission to visit some of the sites in Devon to retrieve sample's to work on but even after five years the environmental agency still will not give me access to the sites, that is how toxic they have been left.


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## BlackLabel (Mar 20, 2022)

Sunwell said:


> Mercury doesn't have a very good efficiency ratio at amalgamation, …


I don't understand this.
Mercury sticks on gold better than dog poo under shoes.


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## Sunwell (Mar 20, 2022)

BlackLabel said:


> I don't understand this.
> Mercury sticks on gold better than dog poo under shoes.


What about lessor forms of gold? What if there is an oxide, chloride, sulfide, etc, layer? What if your ore has telluride in it? The production efficiency of of a mercury mine is around 34%. Rock crusher, ball mill type operation.


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