# Nb and Ta Ore containing Au



## CAR48150 (Jul 11, 2013)

One of my clients brought me a sample of some ore with an assay readout saying it contained app 32% tantalum, 34% niobium, and 00.07-00.1% Au. Our company regularly handles gold-filled with this low of quantity, but I am hesitant to put this stuff into our aqua regia process, as he wants paid on the au and the nb and ta returned. Does anybody know how these elements will react in this process? Will I be able to precipitate the au as usual and just have the acid pregnant with this nb and ta that I could return to him. Thanks.

Sincerely,

David


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## solar_plasma (Jul 11, 2013)

I don't know much about ores, but I read here and there. Therefore I have some concerns:

Make sure it isn't radioaktive (fx. if it comes from Greenland) with a contamination tester like contamat. You could ask you local hazmat team, if they would be so kind to check it.
Make sure this ore is legal, if it comes from Africa.
If you look Tantal up in wikipedia,you will find, that the process of Ta-winning inkludes reactions with hydroflouric, which you don't want to work with.

Though there is a japanese patent, how to recover Ta from e-scrap by treating all the other metals as a workaroud. It was also posted once on the forum. I do not believe, you can use it for ores, but I may be wrong. As far as I heard and read, the treatment depends highly on what kind of ore it is, what other metals and minerals are in it, how are they chemically bound, is it fx sulfide etc.?

We have some specialists on ores, I will be interested in, what they will say.


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## Lino1406 (Jul 11, 2013)

Ta and Nb are present as oxides?


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## CAR48150 (Jul 14, 2013)

Yes, I believe they are present as oxides. I have yet to receive a sample of such ore, but from the readouts I've seen and what he has been telling me, we are only looking at like 1/8 of 1% gold by weight. I'm just trying to get my things in order, and decide whether or not I should decline it before I even try and process this stuff.

Thanks for the help.


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## etack (Jul 14, 2013)

I think you will spend dollars to pickup pennies. The Ta an Nb has the value.

Eric


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## Lino1406 (Jul 15, 2013)

The contents of Nb and Ta, as well as of gold are quite
impressive. As the 1st stage in recovery of Ta and Nb
at such good concentrations is HF this will decrease
the volume of gold containing residue many times.
Certainly this is worth consideration assuming
Nb and Ta have a certain buyer.


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## freechemist (Jul 16, 2013)

Be careful- to yourself and to your dollars. Etack is right, when he says: "you will spend dollars to pickup pennies". Going still further than Etack, I would say, you will loose your dollars definitely.
In your post you write:


> One of my clients brought me a sample of some ore with an assay readout saying it contained app 32% tantalum, 34% niobium, and 00.07-00.1% Au.


The only thing you have in hands is this ominous readout, probably created by an equally ominous black box. Regarding the materials in question alleged gold-content, it is an ore, and a very rich one, indeed. But regarding it's niobium- and tantalum-content, it definitely should not be designed as an ore.
Both metals, niobium (Nb) and tantalum (Ta) form several oxides, the most stable and common being the pentoxides, Nb2O5 and Ta2O5. Pure Nb2O5 contains 69.9% Nb, the corresponding Ta2O5 contains 81.9% Ta. Thus, a mixture of equal weights of pure niobium- and tantalum-pentoxides should contain 35% Nb and 41% Ta. This quite near match with the numbers on the readout makes me more than suspicious, being too beautiful, to be really true.


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## solarsmith (Sep 5, 2013)

1% of one ton is 20 lbs
1/8 of 1 lbs is 2 oz
20 x 2 = 40 
that makes your ore 40 oz per ton gold and well into the direct smelt range.
I hope you did not get your #s from an frx scan.
trust a fire assay . and only one that you had full controll of.

thanks bryan


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## Harold_V (Sep 6, 2013)

solarsmith said:


> 1% of one ton is 20 lbs
> 1/8 of 1 lbs is 2 oz


But not TROY ounces. In troy, assuming the numbers are, otherwise, correct, it would be 1.82 ounces


> 20 x 2 = 40


But in reality, 20 x 1.8229 = 36.458 troy. Still very good, but not 40 ounces. 

Harold


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## solarsmith (Sep 10, 2013)

thanks H. Im no expert and the clarification is good info.
It was simple balpark math to indicate the ore was in the direct smelt range for gold... I have no idea what if any of the other values might be left after smelting...Bryan


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