# purity of gold dust & mercury amalgam + dumping mercury



## Anonymous (Apr 28, 2010)

hi,

i'm a newb here... got some questions that I hope you guys may be kind enough to offer advice upon.

i was recently at a gold mine that is relatively backwards in terms of technology.
i was there because i was interested in buying gold from the miners there.

*scenario 1*
a piece of rock with high contents of gold was crushed into pieces that are relatively large (prompting wastage but it was just to show me the amt of gold in the rock)
then, the traditional panning method was used and the bits that are left over are super fine gold dust.

how pure are these gold dust?

*scenario 2*
i was shown a piece of silvery white lump which is very soft, i can squash it between my fingers.
i was told that it is the product of mixing mercury in a turning machine with rocks containing gold.
it was mixed with some dry chemical (some kind of acid i assume) and it was torched using a blow torch.
the result was a piece of gold.

again, how pure is this piece of gold?

I will upload pictures of my trip to the gold mine and also the process in another thread tonight.

thanks and regards,
CY


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## machiavelli976 (Apr 28, 2010)

hello ceewye and welcome. the gold from ore always came out as an alloy with silver, copper and many times other precious or base metals in all kind of ratio. usually the larger ammount of companion is silver. the purity of you have seen is than the putity of the gold dust comming from that ore if the mercury was pure enough itself. you will learn here this is not the best way to extract gold.normally refiners hate mercury. you should do the same.


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## Anonymous (Apr 28, 2010)

hi mach,

thanks for your reply.

a little confused with it though.

were you referring to the dust thats not pure or the amalgam thats not pure?

I understand that mercury is VERY POISONOUS and i would very much like to teach them the more proper method of disposing/using it. (currently, they just dispose of the waste in the fields... -.-")

Before any of the "green people" start to flame me for causing mercury poisoning... i do not have the power to control how the people work. its the first time i visited the traditional mines so there's really nothing i can do about it.

FYI: they let their kids play with mercury... !!!!

HOWEVER... i do harbour hopes that i can teach them how to properly handle/recover the mercury. Hopefully, with more savings, they'd be willing to learn how to be more environmentally concious and also save their own kids...

i do need to learn more about gold recovery, prospecting, mining in order to advise these people so i hope i have your(GR) full support.
I need to teach them how to be more efficient, how to be safer, how to be more cost effective and thus have them "listen" to an outsider advise them.
On a side note: I also need to profit from this, my air fare and accomodations there cost me about USD800 for 2 days.

I will upload pictures tonight... in about 3 - 4 hours and let u guys know more.

thanks and regards,
CY


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## machiavelli976 (Apr 28, 2010)

ceewye, the gold dust extracted from ore is almost never nearly pure. the purity of an amalgam has no sense. in order, have a roam among the topics of this forum to get good image about this subject. i am just a new member like you so this is my best advice until now. the masters of this forum will contact you soon i guess for better guidance.


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## philddreamer (May 10, 2010)

Hi ceewye!

Like brother machiavelli stated, gold straight from ore is not pure or 24k. Depends from the area you get the ore. For example, gold from different deposits in Alaska can be up to 22k. In California's Mother Lode around 16k.
Around Colorado there're tellurides deposits, gold with high content of silver.
Where is this mine at? A friend of mine, his dad had a "free gold" lode mine in northern CA.; he would crush the rock to free the gold & then washed it with water thru a sluice box. Doesn't matter how you recover it, it will have to be refined to 24k. 
I wouldn't use mercury @ all! It's highly toxic. Breathing the vapours, handling with bare hands is a no, no. Torching it & breathing the fumes, oh deadly! Mercury doesn't refine gold, it amalgams with it & with silver, copper. So, the amalgam ball can be a number of metals. 

This forum has all the information you'll need to achieve 24k. A person can also find safer ways how to recover PM's from ore searching thru the forum.
I hope this could help you some!

phil


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## blueduck (May 10, 2010)

the only way to get a decent result is to take a sample of the ore and have it assayed for content and have a couple different type of assay companies do them to be sure of the results.

"charged" mercury will pick up gold that is less than pure, but it will pick up very minute particles which is why it is valuable in some situations, and less so in others.

removing mercury can be accomplished in several ways, if you have a decent volume then an "air press" will remove the bulk and the use of nitric acid to clean it thoroughly is accomplished faster and with less Hg going back out into the environment and can be contained in a chamber if set up properly for it in advanced. A mercury retort can be used as a recovery device for small to large amounts but most retorts are small and it takes a long time to cool down and then there is the risk of inexperienced folks letting one suck up water and explode..... but usually nearly all the mercury is taken off by the heat and recovered making it ready for charging for another use..... but the use of acid to further clean and refine is still needed.

if you are concerned about the use of mercury, and wanted to "help" then getting the mine to set up a crusher and pulverise the material to a fine powdery mesh and use of a shaker table would probably be the way to go, as long as water is available for the table to use..... or a reverse spiral like Oro Industries makes along with a crushers for the rock....... 

William
Idaho republic


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## beaks (Jul 29, 2010)

i use mercury to get the flour and then retort the mercury for reuse and then use nitric on the sponge that is left after the mercury removal process, never submerge the outlet in water unless your retort is vented because in the cooling process it can pull in the water and cause the retort to explode like a pipe bomb.


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## Chumbawamba (Jul 31, 2010)

Can we please stop disseminating fear and loathing as a form of getting people to properly handle mercury? There's a proper and improper way to handle everything. Mercury, like anything else, is a tool that can be used for good and bad. It can be used both safely and dangerously. To just say, "mercury BAAADDD!!!" does not help anyone; it only promotes ignorance.

Long term exposure to mercury is problematic. Rolling a bead around in your bare hand for a few moments to marvel at it is not. Someone once told me their chemistry teacher would swallow a vile of mercury, then stand on his head and let it come back out and spit it back into a beaker. I definitely wouldn't recommend that, but it should tell you something about mercury.

This forum is about learning, not promoting ignorance.

Teach, don't preach!


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## Harold_V (Aug 1, 2010)

Chumbawamba said:


> This forum is about learning, not promoting ignorance.
> 
> Teach, don't preach!


That's a good point---but---and there is a but----many have no clue about the hazards of mercury, particularly if they work with nitric acid and happen to enjoy a little drink in the process---or they think using a potato is a good idea for a retort replacement. 

It's true that we should teach, which I feel we have done, but the best caution anyone can provide is to avoid mercury. It has no place in refining---just in extraction. Rarely will anyone on this forum have anything that would justify its use---very rarely, indeed. In fact, even if they happen to hit gold, that it will or won't amalgamate is still questionable. Not all gold found in nature does. The gold ore I processed that assayed over 300 ounces/ton would not. You could float small nuggets of gold on the stuff, and it refused to wet. 

Yes, I said float-----the percentage of gold in the nugget was relatively low. 

Harold


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## jimdoc (Aug 1, 2010)

Here is the picture of a guy sitting on mercury that was in the National Geographic magazine.


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## g_axelsson (Aug 2, 2010)

I don't think you would find many reporters in National Geographic that would volunteer for that shot today, the picture looks like it was taken in the 70:es.

What you can't see cant harm you?

http://www.co.eau-claire.wi.us/health_and_environment/Recycle/specialalert.htm

Look at the pictures at the bottom of the page....
Mercury spill on a carpet.





The same spill under UV light, showing mercury vapour.





No way I would use mercury in refining based on what I know today.

/Göran


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