# Gold and Silver recovery from tailing updates



## kjavanb123 (Jun 28, 2009)

Hi all,

Just wanted to keep you guys updated on precious metals recovery from tailing waste. We finally set up the rolling furnace along with its components. It will smelt up to 8 tons per day which is good for now.

So far we could produce gold and silver in lab tests using this primitive yet effective methods. I did some search online to see how can we recover Molybdenum Trioxide and Silica from the tailing. Original tailing has Wulfenite and mostly Silica. Found following chemical formulas that need to be tested yet, your comments on accuracy of these formulas are needed.

To recover Wulfenite:
PbMo4 + 12 CuO -------> 12PbCu + 4MoO3

To recover silica using soda ash:
2NaCo3 + SiO2 ---------> 2Na2O + Si + 2CO3


Thanks and more updates r coming soon
Kevin


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## g_axelsson (Jun 29, 2009)

What is the reason to recover silica? It is one of the most common elements in the earths crust.

/Göran


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## kjavanb123 (Jul 2, 2009)

g_axelsson said:


> What is the reason to recover silica? It is one of the most common elements in the earths crust.
> 
> /Göran



The only reason to recover silica in this matter is to sell it to glass factories that will lower the production cost for my tailing operation.


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## Lino1406 (Jul 3, 2009)

a glass component, not Si . To get Si much
more sophysticated process than suggested
is needed


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## kjavanb123 (Jul 19, 2009)

More updates on this project for those who are interested.

I took 1ton of the tailing sample and provided it to a guy who already has a smelting furnace and tools. He split the 1ton into 2 parts, then add 150kg of lead oxide, 150kg coal, 75kg of ligh soda ash to 500kg of tailing. Put it in the smelting furnace, and let it smelt, after almost 4hrs he released the melting stuff which produced almost 250kg of "pregnant" lead. Then he took 300grams of that pregnant lead and smelt it again and removed most of it till it became this 1.5grams ball which he let it cool off then drop that into AR acid. which it produced some good amount of gold which is dark brownish particles at the bottom of acid holder. He calculated there must be 40 grams of gold per 1ton of tailing. which is hard to believe. Now he is going to smelt the rest of 250kg of pregnant lead to get the gold and silver out of it. All these processes I have witnessed and they used clean materials.

Keep you guys posted on these.
Kj


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## Palladium (Jul 19, 2009)

By the time you figure in transportation. Adding in ( per ton ) 660 lbs lead ox, 660 lbs coal, 330 lbs light soda. Then figure in the cost of fuel per ton for 4 hours, maintenance on equipment, electricity, labor, epa regulations, Then you still have to part and refine it again. Can you make any money. Those are the figures you must contend with now.

Not trying to discourage you just wondering what the profit margins are.


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## kjavanb123 (Jul 19, 2009)

Hi

Thanks for the input, however the price of fuel is very cheap here, considering to be a middle-eastern country. and EPA does not exist here. We are trying to test the rest of the lead balls to figure out what is the exact amount of gold per ton, then find a better solution to lower the operational cost, maybe change the additatives or leach the tailing to release the gold and silver. As of right now the cost to smelt and remove gold and silver from 1 ton of tailing using the mentioned method is roughly $400 per ton. It estimated 40grams per ton of Au, so that would be around $1200 worth of gold in each ton of tailing. We are trying to confirm that number then trying to lower the cost.

Your inputs are welcomed.

Kevin


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## Palladium (Jul 19, 2009)

Thanks,

I thought you were in the us.

Which Middle eastern country ?

How much is fuel ? 35 cents a gallon ? :shock: :shock: :shock:


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## kjavanb123 (Jul 19, 2009)

right now in Pakistan border city with Iran called Siandak. The fuel is 20 cents a gallon  which is not bad at all.


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## Palladium (Jul 19, 2009)

20 Cents, Hell no that ain't bad. I'm giving about $ 2.40 gal here in Alabama.

Things get much worse and i'm getting a segway.

Hey anybody looked at these things lately. I could get into trouble with one of those things. 

OMG :shock: :shock: :shock: They actualy have one with a golf bag mounted on it.    

http://www.segway.com/


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## kjavanb123 (Jul 27, 2009)

More updates on this.

We tried recovering gold/silver from the 50kg pregnant lead from the previous process, but not much gold in it. He said since he never worked with this tailing, he might have used not enough lead oxide in the smelting part. He added 170kg of lead oxide along with 75kg of soda ash and some coal. but at the end he just had 50kg of lead output, so we might have messed up in addidative parts. But someone suggested I should beneficate the tailing to produce a gold concentrate 300ppm or more. Then use the lead-oxide leaching method described above to recover gold and silver.

Any thoughts on that? I did some massive research, and mostly come up with heap-dump leaching for low-grade gold ore and tailing to extract gold. How about froth flotation? Any Chinese made equipments I can purchase and do it myself?

Thanks
Kev


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## kjavanb123 (Aug 23, 2009)

Hi all

More updates on copper factory tailing residue recovery project. 

I found and contacted some of the world famous metallurgical testing facilities, here is the list to name a few.

Met-Solvelabs.com
FDSmidth.com
kuntermetallurgy.com
Dr. WJ Schlitt hydrometal-js.com
SGS Lakewood Canada
inspectorate.com
kdengco.com
saintbarbara.com

For those of you who might have worked with any of them, which one is better? Their prices are almost in the same range of $4000 USD.

Thanks


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## Palladium (Aug 23, 2009)

Intec Gold process :?:


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## kjavanb123 (Aug 23, 2009)

I have already talked with Dave Sammut in Intec and they don't have analytical facility. Those companies mentioned are purely metallurgical testing facilities.


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## qst42know (Aug 23, 2009)

kjavanb123 said:


> I took 1ton of the tailing sample and provided it to a guy who already has a smelting furnace and tools. He split the 1ton into 2 parts, then add 150kg of lead oxide, 150kg coal, 75kg of ligh soda ash to 500kg of tailing. Put it in the smelting furnace, and let it smelt, after almost 4hrs he released the melting stuff which produced almost 250kg of "pregnant" lead. Then he took 300grams of that pregnant lead and smelt it again and removed most of it till it became this 1.5grams ball
> 
> Kj



The process you describe requires you to smelt (vaporise) 150kg of lead and 100kg of mystery metal for every half ton of ore.

Certainly you must see the problem with dispersing so much lead smoke into the local environment?

What metal does the additional 100kg in the pregnant lead consist of? 

You are smelting away an extra 100kg of something, perhaps this is the real value contained in your ore? You may be removing base metals more valuable than the amount of PMs you are recovering. 

Though fuel costs don't seem to be a problem where you are you really should research more responsible and more efficient chemical leach methods. From what little I know of these methods some of the chemicals can be recovered and reused over and over. Far more effective and with far less environmental impact.


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## kjavanb123 (Aug 23, 2009)

Certainly..and if you read my previous post i have contacted some top notch metallurgical labs in Canada / US to test the tailing sample and provide me with the best extraction methods. Just curios if any of you have worked with them.


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## kjavanb123 (Sep 5, 2009)

More updates for peeps who are interested.

I have sent 4kg samples of tailing residue to China Mining Manufacturing companies to test for gravity and flotation, and 10kg to Met Solve Labs in Canada to head assay and particle disturbution study. They got the samples on Monday so it should be getting some results by next week. I am soo anxious.

Kev


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## MiltonFu (Sep 5, 2009)

What companies are you using in china?.


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## kjavanb123 (Sep 5, 2009)

Hi Milton

this chinese company called Hengchang Metallurgy Building Materials Equip Plant, http://www.chinahengchang.com/ they do the flotation/gravity test and they have the equipments for sell for these two tests. Of course there are some american and Candaian companies that manufactor the similar stuff.

Met-solvelabs.com which is part of Falcon Concentrators is the Canadian company testing my tailing residue for head assay and studying the particle sizes. 

If you want I have some really interesting companies related to flotation/gravity and metallurgical testings. Some of them work with big dogs like BHP or Rio Tinto 

Peace


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## kjavanb123 (Sep 5, 2009)

you guys can recycle waste from steel plants that use iron ore as raw materials, wastes from ferromanganese and ferrochrome for some valueable metals left in them. for more info on that check out the following link

http://www.gravicon.biz/en/page38


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## kjavanb123 (Sep 9, 2009)

Finally some good news about tailing.

My Chinese friend has responded with the results from flotation and gravity for tailing samples which was sent to him.

1. flotation didn't work since the tailing has been sitting outside for a long time and became oxided. 
2. Gravity test went well, getting >100grams/ton concentrate is no problem. According to its test, shows 3-5ppm Au, and 50ppm Ag in tailing. He also send me a gravity concentrate plant design including a mixer tank, spiral chute, and 3 centrifugal concentrator whick would lead to >80% recovery. Total cost $21200 for a 20tons per day processing plant. Then I can either sell the gold and silver concentrate to refinaries or do it myself which i prefer the later. Any ideas for getting the precious metals from >100grams/ton concentrates? 

Still awaiting for head assay and size disturbution results from Met Solve Labs in Canada to see if it matches the Chinese company results. Then proceed.

Keep you guys posted.
Kevin


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## kjavanb123 (Sep 14, 2009)

ok

now that we can produce 80ppm Au and 1337ppm Ag concentrate by processing 20tons of tailing residue, then how can we turn that concentrate into pure gold without using cyanide? according to our calculation processing 20tons tailing using gravity circuit would produce 675kg of 80ppm and 1337ppm Ag concentrate. what would be the best ways to recover pure gold and silver from the concentrates?

Thanks
Kevin


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## 4metals (Sep 14, 2009)

Correct me if I'm doing this wrong but you will concentrate 20 tons of material and collect 675 kilograms of material that assays 80 ppm Gold and 1337 ppm of silver. So 80mg = .08 grams X 675 = 54 grams of gold which is 1.73 ounces of gold (value $1730) plus silver at 1.337grams X 675 = 902 grams which is 29 ounces of silver (value $464) 

Before refining costs you will generate this concentrate daily with a value of $2194. What will it cost you to run this material through the concentrator? Did you buy or have available an excavating machine, is that included in your $21,200 concentrating cost? How many tons of material are to be processed? How did you assure yourself that the material you sampled represented the entire pile? 

I understand fuel is cheap over there, as is labor I would assume, but what do you figure your operating costs will be?


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## kjavanb123 (Sep 15, 2009)

Hi

Total cost for 20tons to be removed from the tailing and be processed right now is around $1200. This include removal transportation to plant, and processing. Now i like to know the cheapest non-chemical process that doesn't involve cyanide leaching to get the pure gold and silver.

Thanks


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## Gold (Sep 15, 2009)

Not to rain on your parade, but i think you are really making it more difficult for your yourself than has to be. I don’t understand why you don't want to use chemicals. You said it came from an old copper processor ( I'm not sure ) . Do you have a report on the chemical composition of the material ? You seem to want to make as much as possible. If it's loaded with copper then it may be worth more than the gold in the long run. Gold may wind up being your secondary by product. This would change the whole way you need to look at processing the material. Your not worried about the epa there because you don't have one then i would just build me some big ass vats from wood ( Cheap ). Mop them down with some tar, ( Cheap ) invest in some Cyanide and zinc ( Cheap ) and Run baby Run. That's as cheap as you can get to make your proffits.

Why not Chemicals :?:

How much material are we talking about ?


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## 4metals (Sep 15, 2009)

Do you know the other metals in the ore? What is the composition of the roughly 3/4 of a ton of ore (concentrate) that is holding the gold and silver? From what you've said so far cyanide may be the affordable way to concentrate it further. Are there restrictions in Pakistan concerning either obtaining or using cyanide?


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## Gold (Sep 15, 2009)

The place where your getting the tailings from, Is the place closed down or still active ? Can you set up and work on site there ?


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## kjavanb123 (Sep 16, 2009)

Gold said:


> Not to rain on your parade, but i think you are really making it more difficult for your yourself than has to be. I don’t understand why you don't want to use chemicals. You said it came from an old copper processor ( I'm not sure ) . Do you have a report on the chemical composition of the material ? You seem to want to make as much as possible. If it's loaded with copper then it may be worth more than the gold in the long run. Gold may wind up being your secondary by product. This would change the whole way you need to look at processing the material. Your not worried about the epa there because you don't have one then i would just build me some big ass vats from wood ( Cheap ). Mop them down with some tar, ( Cheap ) invest in some Cyanide and zinc ( Cheap ) and Run baby Run. That's as cheap as you can get to make your proffits.
> 
> Why not Chemicals :?:
> 
> How much material are we talking about ?



Hi there,
The tailing is from a copper flotation process, and according to Chinese company it has mostly iron pyrite, and 0.02% of the composite tailing sample contained copper, so no copper in it. 3ppm Au and 50ppm Ag. I am getting the XRF and more head assay from Met Solve labs in Canada soon.

So you are saying I can just dissolve the 675kg concentrate into tar or zinc sulphide to get the pure gold and silver? how much chemical needed to dissolve 675kg? I would think at least a ton is required?

Thanks
Kev


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## kjavanb123 (Sep 16, 2009)

4metals said:


> Do you know the other metals in the ore? What is the composition of the roughly 3/4 of a ton of ore (concentrate) that is holding the gold and silver? From what you've said so far cyanide may be the affordable way to concentrate it further. Are there restrictions in Pakistan concerning either obtaining or using cyanide?




There are restriction in using cyanide in here which are pain in the neck to go through. Since the final product is only over half a ton everyday there is gotta be a faster way to process that into pure silver and gold at the end of day.


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## kjavanb123 (Sep 16, 2009)

Gold said:


> The place where your getting the tailings from, Is the place closed down or still active ? Can you set up and work on site there ?




Yes it is active right now, but that at least 4 million tons of it still sitting out there. I rather to set up the gravity operation in like 50km nearby city.


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## 4metals (Sep 16, 2009)

You say you are an American yet your English leaves me to wonder. Not that it matters either way. You say you are trucking this material 50 kilometers to a city from the site? That has to be eating into your costs. If your material is mostly iron pyrite and it the gold is in fact at the concentrations you have stated you will be well served by investigating some leach techniques before you break the bank on a concentrating plant. Your material does not yield its gold and silver quickly or easily yet you continue to expect it will. Considering the numbers you have stated so far, there is a large payout in metals potentially in that pile. Looking at this issue from another direction, there is a reason that the pile is still there. Think about it!


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## Gold (Sep 16, 2009)

kjavanb123 said:


> 4metals said:
> 
> 
> > Do you know the other metals in the ore? What is the composition of the roughly 3/4 of a ton of ore (concentrate) that is holding the gold and silver? From what you've said so far cyanide may be the affordable way to concentrate it further. Are there restrictions in Pakistan concerning either obtaining or using cyanide?
> ...



They don't have a problem with you putting all that lead and pollution into the air, but they regulate the Cyanide ?

Go Figure.


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## kjavanb123 (Sep 17, 2009)

well spending 2 yrs here talking to all Pakistanis here would rough up your English too , transportation cost is $4/ton for 50km, vs $15/ton if I were doing the operation in major cities. But I got the results from Met Solve Labs in Canada who cliams size by size analysis and head assay shows only 0.11ppm Au and 4.5ppm Ag. Makes me wonder how the Chinese company got their results.

and as for lead or cyanide, gov here shuts down the plant that uses lead and smelt the gold, but cyanide under control is ok. 

Right now i am just confused which way to lean.Canada or China.


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## qst42know (Sep 17, 2009)

Perhaps it's just me but the Chinese company has equipment to sell. 

With an equipment sale in the balance it is conceivable that any sample sent to them may have show values from their tests.

If your sampling methods were sound and you thoroughly mixed and split the same batch to send to these labs, I would trust the tests from the lab that does only testing.


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## kjavanb123 (Sep 17, 2009)

then how do u explain this?


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## qst42know (Sep 17, 2009)

Sampling is a science in itself.

If you did nothing to ensure a truly representative sample of the whole quantity each individual test would give different results. 

PPM estimates are meaningless if you did not sample properly.

http://www.mine-engineer.com/mining/sample_1.htm


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## kjavanb123 (Sep 17, 2009)

I did sampling per instruction, in a matrix 10 meter apart, dig a hole 20cm and grabbed a fist from the bottom of hole and bagged it, then combine all 54 samples to get 15kg samples which 4kg was sent to China, 9kg sent to Canada.

Interesting thing the Chinese company responded after I showed them results from Canada, and said they got 80ppm Au in concentrate from "vision and experience". interesting.

I am still looking to this. One question though, when you drop a pregnant lead into warm AR, the yellowish smoke comes out then after all the reaction stopped at the bottom of jar you see some dark-brownish particles those are gold right? Just curios.


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## Platdigger (Sep 17, 2009)

Most likely not. If there was available AR left after the lead was disoved, it would disolve any gold also.

I think you could be waisting your time on this Kevin.

Unless you could heap leach the whole pile were it is. And had the equipment and money to do so..........

even then there may not be enough gold to make it pay.
Randy


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## ILikeBoats (Oct 7, 2009)

I understand that mercury is dangerous, however, would a closed-loop system where you cause the mercury to go into vapor, but capture that vapor and condense it to use again to capture more gold, be workable? Would avoid the use of cyanide, right?


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## Harold_V (Oct 7, 2009)

ILikeBoats said:


> I understand that mercury is dangerous, however, would a closed-loop system where you cause the mercury to go into vapor, but capture that vapor and condense it to use again to capture more gold, be workable?


That's normally how it is handled, so, yes, the idea is workable, but there is always risk when dealing with mercury. It is tightly regulated, so investigate the ramifications of using it in your processing. It could prove troublesome. 



> Would avoid the use of cyanide, right?


Not necessarily. Depends a great deal on the ore. There are occurrences of gold that won't amalgamate. I've dealt with one of them. I had planned to use mercury, but it was useless for my application. There are also instances where cyanide isn't the answer. it excels with oxidized ores, especially when the gold is microscopic. It would not be a good choice for recovering large particles. 

I feel it's safe to say that each case is its own. None of the acceptable methods work across the board for all ores. 

Harold


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## kjavanb123 (Oct 18, 2009)

aight

Just recieved the Au/Ag and FeMn concentrates from the Chinese company which produced them for us with samples sent to them. what would be the sure way of testing the concentrate samples now for Au and Ag grade? FeMn concentrate is clearly visible with naked eyes, they produce this from Ferromanganese furnace slag, I just sent them that in case tailing didn't work. Keep you all interested in this project posted about updates.

Thanks
Kev


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## kjavanb123 (Nov 2, 2009)

lates updates.

Just recieved the Au/Ag concentrate Chinese produced from the tailing sample sent to them. The fire-assay and ICP Mass on the concentrate shows 4ppm Au and 54 ppm Ag. Now since the gravity separation that gets the tailing and produces this Au/Ag concentrate is fairly cheap for 20tons per day it would cost around $7700. Can it be feasiable to attach a leaching plant next to it to use cyanide leaching? I assume 4ppm Au and 50ppm Ag is economical grades. Gekkos Inc is an Australian company that produces all kind of plants for jigging, gravity ciruit, and leaching. They do a hell of a job in that department. So let's wait till I get a respond from them with this new results.

peace.


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## ILikeBoats (Nov 2, 2009)

kjavanb123 said:


> lates updates.
> 
> Just recieved the Au/Ag concentrate Chinese produced from the tailing sample sent to them. The fire-assay and ICP Mass on the concentrate shows 4ppm Au and 54 ppm Ag. Now since the gravity separation that gets the tailing and produces this Au/Ag concentrate is fairly cheap for 20tons per day it would cost around $7700. Can it be feasiable to attach a leaching plant next to it to use cyanide leaching? I assume 4ppm Au and 50ppm Ag is economical grades. Gekkos Inc is an Australian company that produces all kind of plants for jigging, gravity ciruit, and leaching. They do a hell of a job in that department. So let's wait till I get a respond from them with this new results.
> 
> peace.



So does that mean 4grams of gold and 54 grams of silver per metric tonne? At current spot price you are talking about $150 per ton in recovered value assuming you can get it all.


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## kjavanb123 (Nov 2, 2009)

Yes that is true, but consider that sample of tailing which was sent to China was processing with machines with recovery of only 60-70% and not Falcon of Knelson concentrators. PLus the sample was a composite samples from 50 different 20-cm holes in tailing dam. We have had up to 10ppm in tailing head assay. The total reserve is around 5 million tons and everyday 380ton gets added to the tailing. I am just curios would that be feasible? It also shows 1% Pb and 1% Zn in the tailing, how can I concentrate those? I am sure the more concentrates come out of the tailing the better it will cover some operation cost.


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## patnor1011 (Nov 2, 2009)

it all depens on political situation there too. country is on verge of economic collapse and civil war. one day you can wake up in the middle of fight between holy men and army... not very assuring prospect and with all that recent bombing around...


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## kjavanb123 (Nov 2, 2009)

patnor1011 said:


> it all depens on political situation there too. country is on verge of economic collapse and civil war. one day you can wake up in the middle of fight between holy men and army... not very assuring prospect and with all that recent bombing around...



oh lol most bombing is taking place in the east side of country near Afghan borders, it's really quite here and stable. so heap cyanide leaching is the most economical way to extract the gold and silver in the concentrate, but i am looking to find a sort of mobile and compact leaching plant. any ideas on the grades though? i mean 4ppm Au and 50ppm Ag is good enough to leach using cyanide? most mines i have heard are in the range. plus they have the crushing and grinding and most of all extraction costs, which this tailing does not have at all. so most be ok then. plz advise.


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## kjavanb123 (Nov 5, 2009)

Just traded some emails with guys in Knelson concentrators, they suggest a series of concentrators along with shaking table would bring the 0.11ppm Au tailing grade to 40-50ppm Au concentrate. Is this possible?


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