# Gold in iron sand



## Nytco (Feb 9, 2021)

Hello,

So i have a quantity of iron sand which contains gold (which i tested by a precious metal analyzer).

But i don't know any way to get the gold out of the sand so if any of you guys would please tell me a way to get the gold out i would be grateful.


Note: the iron sand contains (above 80% iron, Manganese, Titanium, Zinc, Chromium, Copper, Nickel and Gold).

A photo is attached!!!

Thank you for your time.


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## butcher (Feb 9, 2021)

Panning.

To test this idea put some of the sand in a glass jar 1/3 sand and fill it with water, fit the jar with a lid, shake the jar vigorously, then swirl the contents in a circular motion, as the slurry of sand and water settles. Now look through the bottom of the glass, note all the gold will be at the bottom of the jar, with the lighter sand and other material on top.

In panning, we remove the top portion of the material (sands) by dumping the top layer of sand out of our pan with the water and refill the pan with water, and repeating the process to get gold to the bottom of the pan and pouring off more of the top layers of sands until all we have left in our pan is the gold.


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## jmdlcar (Feb 9, 2021)

butcher said:


> Panning.
> 
> To test this idea put some of the sand in a glass jar 1/3 sand and fill it with water, fit the jar with a lid, shake the jar vigorously, then swirl the contents in a circular motion, as the slurry of sand and water settles. Now look through the bottom of the glass, note all the gold will be at the bottom of the jar, with the lighter sand and other material on top.



Next time I get pay dirt from Alaska or where ever I will that.


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## butcher (Feb 9, 2021)

If I have dry sand and wish to test it for gold I can use a piece of paper.
if we can get the sand and gold in the air and lightly blow air across it the lighter materials like sand will shift positions in the air with the wind easier than the more dense or heavier materials, the denser gold not being affected by the blowing air or wind will fall more directly down, while the sand moves more with the wind (basically blowing the sand off the sheet of paper), shaking the paper will help in the process, cupping the paper somewhat so your blowing the sand up hill and off of the paper while keeping the gold.

This is a basically technique used where water may not be available such as in desert mining of sands or crushed dirt, ore, and rocks. A method often known as dry panning or dry washing (which many different devices can be used.

Other option sheep skins, in ancient times people would skin a sheep and use his hide to catch gold in the fleece, in flowing rivers where they used the water flow carrying sand and gold over the fleece, the heavier gold would stick in the wool while most all of the lighter sand would flow over the hide, a sluice box (a version of the modern day sheep skins) can be made easily out of wood or metal or even a corrugated plastic drain pipe slit in half...

Basically most gold mining (separating gold from gangue materials) or mining of free gold is done using gravity taking advantage of gold density and of it being so much heavier than other materials.


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## jmdlcar (Feb 9, 2021)

What would be a good size of plastic drain pipe slit in half?


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## Nytco (Feb 9, 2021)

Dear all, 

Thank you for your suggestions. But a few questions.

Would those ways work by the density difference because everything is so small/ really fine.

And is there a way by using chemicals to extract gold?!

Thank you


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## jmdlcar (Feb 9, 2021)

@Nytco, I was thinking building a box using different to filter size big holes to small holes.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Stainless-Steel-Mesh-Samples-2-4-5-8-10-12-14-16-18-20-6-x12/114423642241?hash=item1aa42e3881:g:N7QAAOSwBahVZker

That might help


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## Geo (Feb 9, 2021)

Gravity separation using water and resistance will separate gold particles from lighter material very well. Gold is around 19 times heavier than water. It doesn't matter what particle size the gold is, what ever it weighs, it takes 19 times that weight in water to make it move. The force of the water applies. Since force is not applied in all directions but rather one direction, speed of the water flow is directed on one side at a time and lowers the water to gold ratio. It is still high enough to assume that any obstacle, such as rough texture, will be enough to stop the gold from moving and allowing the lighter and less dense material to move across it and out of the stream.


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## butcher (Feb 9, 2021)

https://www.google.com/search?sxsrf=ALeKk02SIrPgpHnFUZtRrZTfIhWgGs_ZYg%3A1612909480096&source=hp&ei=qAsjYN32AvnA0PEP85uVsAc&iflsig=AINFCbYAAAAAYCMZuG4JaiG8Nt9VLB2NqgH2AsiwZyYh&q=sluice+box+corregated+pipe&oq=sluice+box+corregated+pipe&gs_lcp=CgZwc3ktYWIQAzIGCAAQFhAeOgQIIxAnOgIIADoFCAAQsQM6AgguOgUILhCxAzoICC4QxwEQrwE6BQgAEMkDOgkIABDJAxAWEB46BwgAEMkDEA06BAgAEA06BQghEKABOgcIIRAKEKABOggIABAIEA0QHlDcKViDsgFgxrcBaABwAHgBgAGrDYgB42CSAREwLjMuNS42LjMuNi4yLjAuMZgBAKABAaoBB2d3cy13aXo&sclient=psy-ab&ved=0ahUKEwjd6vOE7N3uAhV5IDQIHfNNBXYQ4dUDCAk&uact=5

https://www.google.com/search?q=sluice+box+corrugated+pipe&sxsrf=ALeKk02REzumnhNtIo2GHVmTNm6vRflktQ:1612909506930&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi3gNyR7N3uAhX0KX0KHRUGB20Q_AUoAnoECBIQBA&biw=1246&bih=864
https://www.google.com/search?q=fine+gold+recovery&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwiro5uk7N3uAhWBhZ4KHc9YDoIQ2-cCegQIABAA&oq=fine+gold+recovery&gs_lcp=CgNpbWcQAzIECCMQJzICCAAyAggAMgIIADIGCAAQBRAeMgYIABAFEB4yBAgAEBgyBAgAEBgyBAgAEBgyBAgAEBg6BwgjEOoCECc6BAgAEEM6BQgAELEDOggIABCxAxCDAToHCAAQsQMQQzoGCAAQCBAeUNS9Alj_8QJggPcCaAFwAHgCgAGnB4gB-zqSAQ0wLjMuNC4yLjIuNC4zmAEAoAEBqgELZ3dzLXdpei1pbWewAQrAAQE&sclient=img&ei=6QsjYOuKK4GL-gTPsbmQCA&bih=864&biw=1246

Gold is very rarely extracted from ore or soils by leaching. Most gold mined is free milling gold and can be separated from the gangue ore using gravity or floatation methods.

In hard rock mines where the gold is not free milling and the gold is basically invisible to all but maybe one of the strongest microscopes, where the gold is normally locked up in the sulfides or some other Anionic compound then after preprocessing the ore may be chemically leached, but only if there are no better methods for that particular type of ore where concentration and smelting may become a better option or recovery method...

Try panning with some lead shot, try blowing the sand using the paper test (mentioned above) with some lead filings, similar in size of your gold.
Lead is much lighter (less dense) than gold, but much denser than the sand and iron filings, using the lead is a good way to test your panning skills or how well you are running your sluice box, if you cannot keep lead in your pan you cannot keep gold there, if you can seperate lead from the sand the gold is much easier.


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## nickvc (Feb 9, 2021)

In mechanical concentration of gold there are several things you need to get right from my basic understanding, first is the angle of your sluice the second the flow of water and third the loading rate of the material, panning the waste to check how well you are processing your material is important to allow you to perfect your sluice.
Many seem to think that chemical leaching is the best and or easiest way but in honesty it can be very expensive not only in buying your chemicals but disposing of your wastes properly and in controlling the dangerous fumes produced while processing.


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## Nytco (Feb 10, 2021)

Hi again,

So i tried blowing the sand on a paper very lightly but still at the end the sand was all gone..

Some of you suggested the sluice box technique but i want to try and get the gold extracted first to make sure that some way works. Then i will get to a larger scale.

Plus the gold is super super fine, like i cant see it, and according to the metal analyzer, my sand contains about 2.30 percent gold.

Basically i want a cheap way to test if i can really get the gold out at home. Then i can perform larger quantities later on.

Thank you


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## nickvc (Feb 10, 2021)

A simple test is to cover you sand with HCl and allow any reactions to cease add more until no reaction in small doses then add either bleach or hydrogen peroxide, if you use bleach you will need to drive any spare chloride off by heating for about 1 hour, do not boil just heat gently, then take a drop on a plastic spoon and test with stannous chloride, take photos and post on here from the first reaction and for about 2 minutes, we can then tell if you actually have gold.
I would suggest a small sample such as 50 grams that should tell us all we need to know.


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## Dave jerry (Feb 10, 2021)

Recovering fine gold from sand is one of the challenging aspects of gold mining. The process required to separate gold from other minerals is simple enough to understand. Gold, being the heaviest element we typically encounter in a stream, can be separated from lighter materials by various gravity separation methods.


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## richoc (Mar 24, 2022)

It seams that you just want to get to the gold out right away, well not how it works.
You end up removing every thing else to leave you the gold, then it is still not pure and must be refined.

One important thing I have to ask is where is the sample of sand from, not location but....
Great Lakes beach sands would help.
The best thing to do final separation of this kind of sands is a miller table.
But that is after lots of gravity separation and is itself a type of gravity separation.

Most major companies now froth gold, not leaching it as the olden days, getting the hydrophobic properties to have it float out of the separation baths. Mind blowing ..I still am still trying to get a handle on this process.

If your to leach the sand, you must then have the know how to recover the gold from that leaching process and the conversion, neutralization and handling of all the chemicals in that process .
There are some companies out there that sell bucket leaching solutions.
Before trying any leaching I would get the tool calibrated, or check your sand with another known scanner.
A reading in that percentage rate could be all error factor of non programed elements.

I guess I am saying do not put the cart before the horse, lets prove it is AU before spending money on things.

This is what I recommend you do, WET magnetic separation to get out the iron. Then pan out what remains to get to the most gold concentration that you can. Now treat with AR, filter until looks like clean pee and then do a stannous chloride test to see if it shows gold. The amount of iron at 80 % needs to be removed or at least reduced to make this work best. All the gold can then be dropped from the AR with SMB and your ahead of the game.

Post photos of a white spoon test as other posts have suggested on here for other to view.

I do not trust the scan results you have gotten, the error rate of the scanner settings could account for it all.
Because if you can not pan it out of the great looking sand, it is not there.


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## Ohiogoldfever (Mar 24, 2022)

I chase fine golds here in Ohio. One of the most important things about small gold separation is classification. 

If you can classify that material into two or three different sizes then gravity separation will go much more smoothly. 

Kitchen strainers or even a fine mesh coffee filter is great.

Good luck.


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## nickvc (Mar 25, 2022)

The OP has not been back since last February so I guess his dreams of getting rich may have died or he didnt like the responses or both


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## goldshark (Mar 25, 2022)

A friend calls me on the phone and says " I hear you know how to get the gold out of black sands". I say "sure, lets see what you have". He arrives with a large plastic gold pan full of what looks like rusted black sand. Upon further inspection, it turns out that this rusty looking black sand is in fact about 30 ounces of fine gold and black sand. My first inclination was to use a rare earth magnet to pull the remaining bit of black minerals out. I lowered the plastic covered REM over the pan, and felt a pretty substantial weight increase to the magnet. After a quick shake of the magnet to remove any gold which may have partially been picked up by the field, I turned it over to inspect the black sands. Anybody want to guess what I got on the Magnet?You'll have to wait until tomorrow to find out. Just kidding. The magnet had almost all gold stuck to it, with just a few grains of black mineral. I definitely scratched my head, and said " hmmm, never seen this before". I took a few grains to the microscope to see WTF. Under the scope, nothing but gold all the way around the grains, no visible iron at 150 X. I didn't wash with acid to see if there was an iron coating on the surface, as the friend, I think, just wanted to show me that I wasn't a know it all when it comes to processing placer concentrates. I truly was just a "pan till it comes clean", or table it, if in large enough quantity, kind of thinker, till I saw this. I was going to fire it, but he didn't have the time for it that day. All I have to say in conclusion is, the older I get, the more I realize the less I know.


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## Martijn (Mar 25, 2022)

I just saw this video from Dan Hurd. A dry magnetic separator might help.


Look at the gold caught in a normal magnet when he pushes it in the concentrates.


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## richoc (Mar 26, 2022)

You should see the dust from iron sands we do here from the great lakes beach sands.
I do wet magnetic wash system dropping and pick ups over and over from container to container until no gold under microscope is left.
It is sit there for hours playing you favorite music for hours playing the water tiring not to go crazy thing.
Walking away coming back and doing it again.

But issue is there is nearly no black sand if you zoom up the guys photos of this sand, you can see quarts and even what looks like Gold chunk larger than the average grains of sands with it.
When we have our cons from the beach blacks sands, tons of red and brown garnets in the blacks sands.
Looks entirely black when wet in the buckets, no light brown sands at all, unlike these photos.
Scans will show as high as 90% percent Iron, not even showing any gold.
But we get as high as 5 grams of micro gold out 5 gals. of cons. with gravity separation.
Then we can still process the sands and recover more values from what others would discard.

We have collected some of sands that were poured on the drive way and recovered gold dust that was missed just from processing in a market sold cons. finishing sluice system.
Dude was paving his drive way in missed gold dust and black sand for years.

It sounds like he only had it scanned for the metals, not a total element scan of the sand.
At the percentage of Gold it stated ,it if all been just the metals in the report report he had.......$1000+ per pound of sand.

For the magnetic Gold around the iron black sands example above that magnets would not work for separation.
That was at the final separation state of the sand ready for processing at the point he gave it you.
What process did you use to recover the gold from that point?


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## goldshark (Mar 27, 2022)

Martijn said:


> I just saw this video from Dan Hurd. A dry magnetic separator might help.
> 
> 
> Look at the gold caught in a normal magnet when he pushes it in the concentrates.



I used a REM lowered very slowly over the Gold/ other minerals, dry, very slowly, until I could see some material being lifted. At this point the magnet was held in position at 3" above the cons. The pan was then shaken on the flat surface. At no time did the magnet get closer than 3 ". The result was such that if you can imagine the results of when Dan just stuck the magnet into the pan, in his video, and pulled it out full of black sand with a little bit of trapped gold, exactly the opposite happened. The mass on the magnet was 99.9% gold, with a little black sand. This is no fish story. I wish I had a camera to take a pic so others would believe this. I still can't believe what I saw.


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