# Extraction of Microscopic Au from epithermal quartz?



## nuggethead (Sep 3, 2011)

I have myself some nice epithermal quartz with nice black sulphide bands (Known as ginguro mineralisation). I know this stuff goes 30 g/t Au and often into the hundreds ppm. I do believe some gold would be trapped in the pyrite within the sulphide bands. My question is... would it be possible to crush and pan as much of this sulphide band material into a concentrate. Then perhaps roast it a little to help release sulphur to convert pyrite to oxides, and then finally recovering Au with AR? There would be silver in this ore as well as the gold is present as electrum.


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## Dirtdiggaler (Sep 8, 2011)

nuggethead said:


> I have myself some nice epithermal quartz with nice black sulphide bands (Known as ginguro mineralisation). I know this stuff goes 30 g/t Au and often into the hundreds ppm. I do believe some gold would be trapped in the pyrite within the sulphide bands. My question is... would it be possible to crush and pan as much of this sulphide band material into a concentrate. Then perhaps roast it a little to help release sulphur to convert pyrite to oxides, and then finally recovering Au with AR? There would be silver in this ore as well as the gold is present as electrum.



First if possible get a sulfide fire assay done and see if you are wasting your time some sulfides are completely barren and pyrite can carry from .2 to 132 grams per ton AU. 
Get yourself a large mortar and pestle and grind the oar very fine. Then make a ball mill out of a rock tumbler with ball bearings in it. Grind the powder with a little soap and water for at least 24 hours. If the gold is in a small particle or colloidal form locked up inside the sulfide minerals, you can liberate it by very fine grinding. Then pan your concentrates very carefully then roast the concentrates to a red heat. Then grind The roasted oar again to liberate the gold that gets coated with a calcine coating or any coating from the roasting. Pan again then you should be able to use AR to recover your values but if you are milling a large quantity it would be cheaper to leach and cement with zinc . I have recovered gold using the ball mill on my cons with a little Lysol, tsp and dish soap. Then grind to a very fine powder, remove balls and add a little mercury. Run for a few hours then pan the mercury out of the mix, I put the mix in a cup and carefully run water in the cup and it will wash the tailing's away leaving the mercury. If you have a gold wheel they work great to remove the Gange from the mercury. Then wearing rubber gloves squeeze the mercury through a leather shammey and you are left with a gold silver amalgam. If you use 29.16 grams of head oar not concentrates, one milligram of metal equals one ounce per ton of oar. Try this and let us know how it works for you.


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