Gold and Silver recovery from tailing updates

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kjavanb123

kjavanb123

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 1, 2009
Messages
1,746
Location
USA
Hi all,

Just wanted to keep you guys updated on precious metals recovery from tailing waste. We finally set up the rolling furnace along with its components. It will smelt up to 8 tons per day which is good for now.

So far we could produce gold and silver in lab tests using this primitive yet effective methods. I did some search online to see how can we recover Molybdenum Trioxide and Silica from the tailing. Original tailing has Wulfenite and mostly Silica. Found following chemical formulas that need to be tested yet, your comments on accuracy of these formulas are needed.

To recover Wulfenite:
PbMo4 + 12 CuO -------> 12PbCu + 4MoO3

To recover silica using soda ash:
2NaCo3 + SiO2 ---------> 2Na2O + Si + 2CO3


Thanks and more updates r coming soon
Kevin
 
What is the reason to recover silica? It is one of the most common elements in the earths crust.

/Göran
 
g_axelsson said:
What is the reason to recover silica? It is one of the most common elements in the earths crust.

/Göran
Click to expand...

The only reason to recover silica in this matter is to sell it to glass factories that will lower the production cost for my tailing operation.
 
More updates on this project for those who are interested.

I took 1ton of the tailing sample and provided it to a guy who already has a smelting furnace and tools. He split the 1ton into 2 parts, then add 150kg of lead oxide, 150kg coal, 75kg of ligh soda ash to 500kg of tailing. Put it in the smelting furnace, and let it smelt, after almost 4hrs he released the melting stuff which produced almost 250kg of "pregnant" lead. Then he took 300grams of that pregnant lead and smelt it again and removed most of it till it became this 1.5grams ball which he let it cool off then drop that into AR acid. which it produced some good amount of gold which is dark brownish particles at the bottom of acid holder. He calculated there must be 40 grams of gold per 1ton of tailing. which is hard to believe. Now he is going to smelt the rest of 250kg of pregnant lead to get the gold and silver out of it. All these processes I have witnessed and they used clean materials.

Keep you guys posted on these.
Kj
 
By the time you figure in transportation. Adding in ( per ton ) 660 lbs lead ox, 660 lbs coal, 330 lbs light soda. Then figure in the cost of fuel per ton for 4 hours, maintenance on equipment, electricity, labor, epa regulations, Then you still have to part and refine it again. Can you make any money. Those are the figures you must contend with now.

Not trying to discourage you just wondering what the profit margins are.
 
Hi

Thanks for the input, however the price of fuel is very cheap here, considering to be a middle-eastern country. and EPA does not exist here. We are trying to test the rest of the lead balls to figure out what is the exact amount of gold per ton, then find a better solution to lower the operational cost, maybe change the additatives or leach the tailing to release the gold and silver. As of right now the cost to smelt and remove gold and silver from 1 ton of tailing using the mentioned method is roughly $400 per ton. It estimated 40grams per ton of Au, so that would be around $1200 worth of gold in each ton of tailing. We are trying to confirm that number then trying to lower the cost.

Your inputs are welcomed.

Kevin
 
Thanks,

I thought you were in the us.

Which Middle eastern country ?

How much is fuel ? 35 cents a gallon ? :shock: :shock: :shock:
 
right now in Pakistan border city with Iran called Siandak. The fuel is 20 cents a gallon ;) which is not bad at all.
 
20 Cents, Hell no that ain't bad. I'm giving about $ 2.40 gal here in Alabama.

Things get much worse and i'm getting a segway.

Hey anybody looked at these things lately. I could get into trouble with one of those things.

OMG :shock: :shock: :shock: They actualy have one with a golf bag mounted on it. :p :p :p

http://www.segway.com/
 
More updates on this.

We tried recovering gold/silver from the 50kg pregnant lead from the previous process, but not much gold in it. He said since he never worked with this tailing, he might have used not enough lead oxide in the smelting part. He added 170kg of lead oxide along with 75kg of soda ash and some coal. but at the end he just had 50kg of lead output, so we might have messed up in addidative parts. But someone suggested I should beneficate the tailing to produce a gold concentrate 300ppm or more. Then use the lead-oxide leaching method described above to recover gold and silver.

Any thoughts on that? I did some massive research, and mostly come up with heap-dump leaching for low-grade gold ore and tailing to extract gold. How about froth flotation? Any Chinese made equipments I can purchase and do it myself?

Thanks
Kev
 
Hi all

More updates on copper factory tailing residue recovery project.

I found and contacted some of the world famous metallurgical testing facilities, here is the list to name a few.

Met-Solvelabs.com
FDSmidth.com
kuntermetallurgy.com
Dr. WJ Schlitt hydrometal-js.com
SGS Lakewood Canada
inspectorate.com
kdengco.com
saintbarbara.com

For those of you who might have worked with any of them, which one is better? Their prices are almost in the same range of $4000 USD.

Thanks
 
I have already talked with Dave Sammut in Intec and they don't have analytical facility. Those companies mentioned are purely metallurgical testing facilities.
 
kjavanb123 said:
I took 1ton of the tailing sample and provided it to a guy who already has a smelting furnace and tools. He split the 1ton into 2 parts, then add 150kg of lead oxide, 150kg coal, 75kg of ligh soda ash to 500kg of tailing. Put it in the smelting furnace, and let it smelt, after almost 4hrs he released the melting stuff which produced almost 250kg of "pregnant" lead. Then he took 300grams of that pregnant lead and smelt it again and removed most of it till it became this 1.5grams ball

Kj
Click to expand...

The process you describe requires you to smelt (vaporise) 150kg of lead and 100kg of mystery metal for every half ton of ore.

Certainly you must see the problem with dispersing so much lead smoke into the local environment?

What metal does the additional 100kg in the pregnant lead consist of?

You are smelting away an extra 100kg of something, perhaps this is the real value contained in your ore? You may be removing base metals more valuable than the amount of PMs you are recovering.

Though fuel costs don't seem to be a problem where you are you really should research more responsible and more efficient chemical leach methods. From what little I know of these methods some of the chemicals can be recovered and reused over and over. Far more effective and with far less environmental impact.
 
Certainly..and if you read my previous post i have contacted some top notch metallurgical labs in Canada / US to test the tailing sample and provide me with the best extraction methods. Just curios if any of you have worked with them.
 
More updates for peeps who are interested.

I have sent 4kg samples of tailing residue to China Mining Manufacturing companies to test for gravity and flotation, and 10kg to Met Solve Labs in Canada to head assay and particle disturbution study. They got the samples on Monday so it should be getting some results by next week. I am soo anxious.

Kev
 
Hi Milton

this chinese company called Hengchang Metallurgy Building Materials Equip Plant, http://www.chinahengchang.com/ they do the flotation/gravity test and they have the equipments for sell for these two tests. Of course there are some american and Candaian companies that manufactor the similar stuff.

Met-solvelabs.com which is part of Falcon Concentrators is the Canadian company testing my tailing residue for head assay and studying the particle sizes.

If you want I have some really interesting companies related to flotation/gravity and metallurgical testings. Some of them work with big dogs like BHP or Rio Tinto ;)

Peace
 
you guys can recycle waste from steel plants that use iron ore as raw materials, wastes from ferromanganese and ferrochrome for some valueable metals left in them. for more info on that check out the following link

http://www.gravicon.biz/en/page38
 

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