Extracting Gold from Mid-Concentrated Ore

[CRamano]

Good Day,

I Have approx. 5Kg concentrated powderized ore, I know very little about it, but I acquired it when I was cleaning my shop floor after renting the space to someone to use for their gold processing. I was pressure washing the concrete floor to clean the dust and noticed gold bands forming at the edge of the dirt line, so I sprayed the entire floor and collected a small salad bowl full of material.

I am trying to decide the best way for me to process it. I figure i have 3 options;

I can pan it and collect any pure gold and/or sulfides, but I notice some of the tiny shiny flakes seem to float on the water a bit, I don't know why, maybe that's not gold, or maybe if the gold powder is very fine the surface tension will hold it up.

I can also heat the whole batch and try to have the gold melt and collect at the bottom. I may also have treat some sulfides as well.

Or i can try to recover all the gold chemicaly, with acid or mercury or cyanide or something, I am no chemist but I have a good understanding of chemistry.

I have never processed or panned gold before, but I am a pretty smart and mechanically capable person and this sound like a fun thing to learn about.

I have a small panning kit coming next week so I think I will start with that and see how it goes.

What are some good options for me to effectively extract all the gold or other metals from this material.

Thanks for the advice

 

[goldshark]

Fine Gold will float on water. That is why you should add JET DRY to your water before panning. Add some oil from the floor, and you will have a problem X2. I would vacuum the floor with a shop vac, then add jet dry to water, then pan. It will depend on the quantity of material you have in the pan, to determine the course of action for final clean up method. Keep us posted.

 

[SRM]

It may be worthwhile to roast the powder to drive off the oils and convert some of the sulfides to oxides.

 

[Ultrax]

Why do you think that you have gold in your ore and not fine mica, which is used to obtain beautiful sparkles in cosmetics? Make an iodine test for initial analysis. Make 5% iodine-ethanol solution (from your drugstore), dissolve some ore in it (2-3 hours to dissolve, to be sure), and pour filtered solution drop by drop onto hot (250C-300C) metal, for example, a spoon heated on fire. If after evaporation of 5-10 drops in the same place of the spoon you see a golden spot, then you have gold in the ore, if there is no spot, then it's just mica.

 

[Ultrax]

P. S. After the processing of many types of filmy gold ores, the waste remains in the form of thin micas, very similar to gold, but no longer contain it. They are easily sprayed and settle on surfaces in the room. Your previous renter could have mica traces of processing waste if you washed ore samples off the floor. Thin gold can certainly float on the surface of the liquid, but probably no one will pour it out intentionally, so perhaps your ore got on the floor by air, and therefore it is most likely mica.