Non-Chemical Anyone ever recovered gold using sound waves?

[Anonymous]

I have been thinking that we all may be barking up the wrong tree in the recovery systems we use. They are fun but messy! As Chemical reactions are diven by a number of factors and those factors.
We may bring about a better result by using sound waves to recover PMs. As each PM has a differnet melting point and also a differnet material density. And all are subject to sound wave forces. The right sound wave generated at the right pulse under the right pressure. Could actually destroy the chemical bond that attaches any metal to another material.
A example of the great benefit of the system would be that one would be able to desolve all the welded solders off a with a sound wave. You could start by melting the gold, then the silver ect. You could actually even melt the mother board and leave all the misc. parts to be sorted and recover even the smallest trace amounts. A nice addition to the process would be that if you removed the air and replace it with different gases you could get the PMS to glow under different sound waves so as to ID the PMS. Or you could mic up and lisen for the metals to talk to you. As metals will produce a sound when bombarded by sound. Like I said we may be barking up the wrong tree :?:

 

[ChucknC]

Interesting idea, but I'm not sure it could be applied in that manner. Some sound waves are so intense, they do generate heat, but I don't think they could be refined to be so selctive.

That said, mechanical waves are used in dredges to cause fine and floating gold to sink. Sound waves are used in similar applications to cause soot to fall out of a gasseous solution at power plants prior to the use of mechanical scrubbers processing the gas emmissions.

All in all, you may be generally on to a new application. Keep researching and let us know what you find.

Chuck

 

[Palladium]

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg12517024.200-sounding-out-new-chemistry-ultrasonic-waves-can-createtemperatures-as-high-as-those-at-the-surface-of-the-sun-and-pressures-ashigh-as-those-in-the-deepest-oceans-not-surprisingly-ultrasound-producessome-interesting-chemistry-as-researchers-are-finding-out.html

 

[peter i]

Rammstein or Bach for chemistry!

But chemistry is about moving electrons, and the poor little buggers have no ears! Unless you move into the region of shock waves, I think there will be little use in this for the amateur.

 

[Palladium]

Rammstein or Bach for chemistry!

But chemistry is about moving electrons, and the poor little buggers have no ears! Unless you move into the region of shock waves, I think there will be little use in this for the amateur.

They have Ears. You just have to scream loud enough. :wink:

One use could be to remove the oxide layer that forms on metals, thus allowing attack by acids.

 

[Harold_V]

For those interested in reading and talking about jazz, posts relating to that topic have been split off and will be found in the Bar & Grill forum listed under Jazz Talk!

Harold

 

[Rag and Bone]

I hope the soundwave-recovery set can recover from this deviation
If you have any info on this subject you should definetely pipe-up
I'm sure the alchemists had stranger ideas, which might have led to worthy discoveries...Who knows?

 

[Anonymous]

So.. how do u make such powerful ultrasound waves ? Where do u even get speakers like that ? Home cinema speakers can't reproduce ultrasounds. And what volume is actualy needed ?
If it could be done my any average person, it could be a great way to smelt . Right ?

 

[ChucknC]

I tried putting a base speaker under a piece of carboard with some fineprospecting concentrates on top. Believe it or not, the blacksands and gold mostly seperated, but not completely. I don't know how this will turn out, but it does invite some more experimentation and research.

This was just about a teaspoon full. Not much, and it was extremely fine. I don't know how it would work with above about 50mesh.

Chuck

 

[Kurr]

Hello all.

Thank you for the forum. This is indeed curious to me as well. Perhaps it may be barking up the wrong tree, but also in the right forest. What about something other than sonic? Micro radio waves? I recently read where a man was able to use a magnetron to emit waves that caused the hydrogen to be split from saltwater, which burned hot enough to melt his test tube. Surely as we scrap we have all come across old microwaves that have at least a basic magnetron in them. I dunno, just what popped into mind whilst reading this.

 

[OMG]

I realize this isn't what you meant, but just for curiosity, you should try using high strength sound waves during normal leaching procedures. I bet you could speed up the reaction rate!
As a matter of fact... I will try that.. when I get some time.

 

[peter i]

I think you would get better results attaching an industrial vibrator to the vessel or by building a "vibrating table"

(If you google "home-made vibrator" don't do it as a picture search :shock: Or braze yourself for a visual experience! )

This guy has a nice idea:

The plywood box housed an old 1/3 HP washing machine motor with the steel metal pulley edge cut off on one side of it so it was the vibrating mechanism.

http://www.artmetal.com/brambush/forum/bramyak1/messages/347.html

A picture search for "industrial vibrator" is quite safe. They are made from very small sizes, up to contraptions capable of vibrating a railcar.

 

[scavenger]

Put a CPU and Hydrochloric acid into a beaker and place in a microwave oven. Cook on high for 5 minutes. I would but my wife would destroy me.

 

[Anonymous]

I tried putting a base speaker under a piece of carboard with some fineprospecting concentrates on top. Believe it or not, the blacksands and gold mostly seperated, but not completely. I don't know how this will turn out, but it does invite some more experimentation and research.

This was just about a teaspoon full. Not much, and it was extremely fine. I don't know how it would work with above about 50mesh.

Chuck

ChucknC;

There are "at least" a few different possibilities for what you observed:
a) Coincidence.
b) The sound waves "alone" did indeed separate the gold from the black sand, leaving a "middle" area of combined iron and gold material. (In my area of Canada approximately 50% of gold has ferrous material in it and due to the coloration caused by this material, it is often mistaken for pure iron by those who don't know better.)
c) A combination of the low frequency sound waves and the high frequency electromagnetic waves resulting from the speakers coil and the low frequency electromagnetic waves from the speaker magnets, combined to; 1)Hold the ferrous material near the electromagnetic wave sources and 2)Vibrate the gold (nonferrous material) enough that the slightest incline in the surface that they were located on, helped to cause them to separate from the other material.


ATTENTION:
For all those looking into the area of sound as a tool for separating PM's;

There are potential life threatening dangers when you experiment with low level sound waves. Some of you may have heard of Nikola Tesla's Earthquake Machine. There is mention of that here: http://www.corrosion-doctors.org/Biographies/TeslaBio-2.htm
And here:
http://www.freeinfosociety.com/site.php?postnum=478

And my bet is that most haven't heard of the effects of what is known as infrasonics, (sound waves that are inaudible to the human ear), on human organs. For more on the topic see: http://www.avforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=139495


At least, thats my thoughts on the matter. And since this is my first post to these forums, I'll keep it light hearted.


OGG.

 

[Anonymous]

Geez... I didn't mean to come off sounding all doom and gloomish. Its actually a good idea to use sound for cleaning, separating, screening, filtering and feeding materials. Not at all uncommon in industry either, but they usually use ultrasound. Just Google "ultrasonic material separator" without the double quotes and you'll get thousands of hits. Like this one:
http://www.wipo.int/pctdb/en/wo.jsp?wo=2006129262&IA=WO2006129262&DISPLAY=DESC
Titled: "RECOVERY OF PARTICULATE MATERIAL FROM SLURRIES"

OGG.

 

[homefires]

I worked for a Electronic manufacturer that used Ultra Sonics to Weld Wire together in a splice.

 

[GeeDub]

You know, I have been thinking of ways to make a really cheap agitator for my dissolution solutions.
You may have just solved the problem.
I'm going to try strapping a speaker or two on the side of the plastic barrels.

 

[butcher]

rock and roll Huh, or some good drums of country, or classical let us know what work the best.?

 

[jsargent]

Ultrasound is the one thing I've not tried incorporating into my leach process and would like to do so. Challenge is finding an industrial scale ultrasound sonicator that I can afford. For those of you working on batches of a couple gallons or so it might be fun to experiment with sonication to speed up the processes.

 

[goldsilverpro]

Sometimes, in scrap yards, you can find old stainless steel vapor degreaser tanks that were used for freon before it was banned. In many of them, there is a powerful ultrasonic unit in the bottom. You can spot them by looking for a cooling coil mounted around the inside near the top of the tank. Most that I've seen were about 18" x 30" x 30" deep. The u'sonic power unit is usually a heavy separate box with a cable.

When freon was first banned, you could find tons of them, especially in scrap yards that were near large electronics manufacturers (i.e., Silicon Valley). In the last few years, I have still run across a few of them. I found one in Houston a couple of years ago.