Acidic or Basic Black Sand Containing Gold?

[Zacksgold]

Hey guys, its me again the guy with Gold from the Pacific Islands .



Just to catch up those who are new here, there is Black sand that we have been sure it contains gold (both visible through panning and very fine micro gold through throwing acids on the sand to cook off the non gold materials). We have opted to smelt the Black sand and separate the slag from the (hopefully lead button). What I'm confused about is how to assay this stuff. How can I tell if its acidic or basic, and is this even necessary to know? if so how do I remedy it in case its basic and in the case its acidic, which chemicals should be thrown in there. From what I'm seeing the most important thing seems to be Borax to help reduce melting points and separate the slag from gold, and a small lead bar to help collect and harvest as much gold from the sample as possible, is this enough? all the tools are ready and lined up (furnace, crucible, cupellation tools too to rid off the lead). And for plan B in case I cant figure out the pH of this stuff, what would be a safe recipe to follow be like for 100g of this material (how much borax, how much lead, how much other chemicals etc...).



Thanks, you guys have been helping me out allot here.

 

[goldshark]

Read the book on assaying in the library by Bugbee. Then watch a video on black sand smelting by Mount Baker Mining and Metals. You will need some Soda Ash, possibly Silica sand, Litharge is better than metallic Lead. and a large cone mold I didn't see listed in your bag of available supplies.

 

[Zacksgold]

Read the book on assaying in the library by Bugbee. Then watch a video on black sand smelting by Mount Baker Mining and Metals. You will need some Soda Ash, possibly Silica sand, Litharge is better than metallic Lead. and a large cone mold I didn't see listed in your bag of available supplies.

Looks like ill be getting to reading, what would the amounts of these chemicals be in weight for a 100g of black sand?

 

[Deano]

The simplest assay method for black sands is using wet chemistry
Run a bottle roll at 1% sodium cyanide solution for 24 hours, use 4 parts solution to 1 part black sands by weight.
Filter the final pulp and send the liquor for AAS or ICP analysis. AAS is preferred , make sure that background correction is used, even more preferred is to extract the gold from the cyanide solution into DIBK/aliquat solution and read the gold level in the DIBK liquor by AAS as above.
There are few places in the world where access to an AAS unit cannot happen, mining companies, laboratories and universities all use them and the cost is usually low, certainly compared with ICP.
Often bartered for a carton of beer or similar.
Deano