# The Miller Process.



## nickvc (Oct 12, 2009)

While i acknowledge that this is not a viable option for most of the members i find the process or what you can find out about it fascinating. Does anyone have a link that details the process fully? I,ve tried all the links i can find but they give little or no real information just general overviews ( no real suprise there) trying to get closer is almost impossible anyone able to help??


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## 4metals (Oct 15, 2009)

Start by reading Hoke (you may have read that on this forum before) she details some large refineries and covers the process decently. There is also some valuable information in The Metallurgy of Gold by Rose, and finally The Extractive Metallurgy of Gold in south Africa by Stanley details specifics to the process used at the Rand refinery.

I set up a Miller process to refine karat gold in 1989 using the data in these books to get me started. Experimenting filled in the blanks. One thing is certain, pay HUGE attention to fume scrubbing, Cottrell electrostatic precipitators seem to be the method of choice, I thought wet scrubbing would be effective due to the degree of water solubility of the chlorine products in the fume, that turned out to be true but wet scrubbing is still needed. 

Safely dispensing chlorine gas is an issue, especially in the already corrosive environment of a refinery.


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## nickvc (Oct 16, 2009)

Thanks 4metals. I have already ordered a copy of Hoke, wish i,d had a copy when i was refining commercially ,would have saved a lot of time and money but i sort of fell into the business, and i will also look at those other references that you kindly gave me.I know that the process is very hazardous especially in regards to the fumes, and their safe treatment has to be addresed by proper extraction and scrubbing,im not going to attempt to set this up,dont have the money and im not in the refining business any more but like Harold V i still find the whole thing fascinating. My attempts to plate copper out of rolled gold is only happening because i was approached by an old client who asked me if i could find a better way to recover the values included and i must admit i love a challenge, and it seems to be a working (so far), im fairly certain that the whole process needs a lot of tweaking to put it into a commercial enviroment, but hell its fun...


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## LeftyTheBandit (Oct 16, 2009)

4metals said:


> Cottrell electrostatic precipitators seem to be the method of choice,



Very nice info! I think I will put that in my book of things to look into!


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