I am a Mineral Processing Eng. Specialized in Gold Ores AMA

[newguy]

Only option with fire is Cupel.
You can maybe slag off some of the Lead/base metals with the correct flux.

Do you need to add Lead in the first place?

as a collector i guess. should i try smelting without a collector? if so would i let it cool and break it out or poor it?

 

[Yggdrasil]

as a collector i guess. should i try smelting without a collector? if so would i let it cool and break it out or poor it?

No if you insist on using fire the only option is smelting with flux.
How do you concentrate your ore and do you have a proper assay?

 

[4metals]

as a collector i guess. should i try smelting without a collector? if so would i let it cool and break it out or poor it?

You may be a new guy but I guess we have to tell you how this forum works. You have just plopped down a post in the middle of a thread that has nothing to do with your question. That is rude and distracting. You have opened another thread already and you were getting responses there. Why did you feel the need to drop in here?

Please, in the future do not post a totally off topic post in the middle of an active thread.

 

[Barstool miner]

I live in an area that was dredged commercially during the gold rush. Tons of dredge tailings piles. This area also has a lot of Pt in the tailings as the primary method of gold recovery was mercury and Pt is not attracted to mercury like gold is, so the dredge operators didn't try to save the Pt and it was allowed to wash back into the discharge tailings.

In your opinion, what is the best way to try and recover the Pt from the existing tailings? Would another wash plant (designed for heavy metals) be the only answer?

Welcome aboard,
James

how to seperate lead from value in bigger portions than cupellation allows?

Use a large cone-shaped Mold. Melt the gold alloy, pour the liquid alloy into the mold, and cool it very slowly. Gold is heavier than Lead so this alloy
will stratify upon cooling and then cut the Gold from the lead. The surface tension of Gold is higher than that of Lead you could use a porous ceramic
filter to separate the two metals. Old Dredge Tailing piles will have to be run over a Sluice to collect Platinum, Gold, Black-sand from the tailing piles
You will also have to use a wet magnetic separator, There are several of these systems running on the Sacramento River in California

 

[goldshark]

Use a large cone-shaped Mold. Melt the gold alloy, pour the liquid alloy into the mold, and cool it very slowly. Gold is heavier than Lead so this alloy
will stratify upon cooling and then cut the Gold from the lead. The surface tension of Gold is higher than that of Lead you could use a porous ceramic
filter to separate the two metals. Old Dredge Tailing piles will have to be run over a Sluice to collect Platinum, Gold, Black-sand from the tailing piles
You will also have to use a wet magnetic separator, There are several of these systems running on the Sacramento River in California

Life would be a lot simpler for us, if the Gold/Lead alloy would separate out due to the difference in specific gravities. Just cut it off at the differentiation line after the pour solidified in a cone mold. I would love to see you demonstrate this technique. I learned from a Colorado School of Mines professor, whom I proposed the same question to, that that is not the case. Reflecting back at that moment with the professor, he just held his head, and tried not to bite my head off for my stupidity, a very patient man.
That being said, I still wonder if Au/Pb alloys could not be separated in a centrifuge, at still molten temperatures.
Another potential, but hardly worth while technique, is to use the differing vapor temperatures of the 2 ( or more ) metals in the alloy;
Lead (Pb)- Boiling point 1749 C / 3180 F
Gold ( AU ) BP 2856 C / 5173 F
Both start to volitize at melting point, but increase rapidly at higher temps.
The con here, is the loss of Au, and the large amount of heat and toxic fumes produced. Not enough pros here to use the evaporation technique.

 

[Darkthirty]

It is funny how everybody wants to find a "environmentally friendly solution". The mere act of a human living in todays world, is very environmentally unfriendly. Even when the person is consciencely trying to leave a friendly footprint. I am not being judgmental, as I admit I am a consumer of non planet friendly goods ( whatever that means ). What cracks me up the most though, are the "Greenies " jumping up and down, screaming and yelling about how miners are messing up, and killing the planet. After their rants, they drive off in their Tesla, or other EV, feeling good about themselves because they just did their part to " Save the planet ".

Life would be a lot simpler for us, if the Gold/Lead alloy would separate out due to the difference in specific gravities. Just cut it off at the differentiation line after the pour solidified in a cone mold. I would love to see you demonstrate this technique. I learned from a Colorado School of Mines professor, whom I proposed the same question to, that that is not the case. Reflecting back at that moment with the professor, he just held his head, and tried not to bite my head off for my stupidity, a very patient man.
That being said, I still wonder if Au/Pb alloys could not be separated in a centrifuge, at still molten temperatures.
Another potential, but hardly worth while technique, is to use the differing vapor temperatures of the 2 ( or more ) metals in the alloy;
Lead (Pb)- Boiling point 1749 C / 3180 F
Gold ( AU ) BP 2856 C / 5173 F
Both start to volitize at melting point, but increase rapidly at higher temps.
The con here, is the loss of Au, and the large amount of heat and toxic fumes produced. Not enough pros here to use the evaporation technique.

Wasn't part of the alloying purpose in addition of a collector, to lower the melting point of the PMs?

 

[goldshark]

Wasn't part of the alloying purpose in addition of a collector, to lower the melting point of the PMs?

Yeeaah!

 

[Yggdrasil]

Wasn't part of the alloying purpose in addition of a collector, to lower the melting point of the PMs?

Most use of Lead in this respect is to collect the small particles of PM.

 

[Taleeho]

welcome - It would be interesting to find out about mineral processing equipment could be adapted to liberate Au from PCB 's on an appropriate scale for e-waste processors.

 

[Barstool miner]

Life would be a lot simpler for us, if the Gold/Lead alloy would separate out due to the difference in specific gravities. Just cut it off at the differentiation line after the pour solidified in a cone mold. I would love to see you demonstrate this technique. I learned from a Colorado School of Mines professor, whom I proposed the same question to, that that is not the case. Reflecting back at that moment with the professor, he just held his head, and tried not to bite my head off for my stupidity, a very patient man.
That being said, I still wonder if Au/Pb alloys could not be separated in a centrifuge, at still molten temperatures.
Another potential, but hardly worth while technique, is to use the differing vapor temperatures of the 2 ( or more ) metals in the alloy;
Lead (Pb)- Boiling point 1749 C / 3180 F
Gold ( AU ) BP 2856 C / 5173 F
Both start to volitize at melting point, but increase rapidly at higher temps.
The con here, is the loss of Au, and the large amount of heat and toxic fumes produced. Not enough pros here to use the evaporation technique.

Thank you for the input, Goldshark. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, I can remember "knowledgeable people " Sprouting off that there were no PGMs or diamonds to be found in North America. I can also remember when the rest of the World was changing to the Metric system, and the USA refused to comply.
I did mention that the cooling of the gold alloy should be done very slowly. There is a Company Called Freys Metals in South Africa that have used this Proprietary this method, for more than 60 years

 

[goldshark]

Thank you for the input, Goldshark. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, I can remember "knowledgeable people " Sprouting off that there were no PGMs or diamonds to be found in North America. I can also remember when the rest of the World was changing to the Metric system, and the USA refused to comply.
I did mention that the cooling of the gold alloy should be done very slowly. There is a Company Called Freys Metals in South Africa that have used this Proprietary this method, for more than 60 years

I have noticed some segregation of metals in large pours into cone molds. The alloy I observed consisted of primarily Tin, with an unknown quantity of Bronze thrown into the mix.I will post a picture of this when I get the time. I don't know what the recovery rate would be, from letting it cool slowly, but feel if this was an industry standard, we would all adopt this technique.

 

[Barstool miner]

Thank you for the input, Goldshark. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, I can remember "knowledgeable people " Sprouting off that there were no PGMs or diamonds to be found in North America. I can also remember when the rest of the World was changing to the Metric system, and the USA refused to comply.
I did mention that the cooling of the gold alloy should be done very slowly. There is a Company Called Freys Metals in South Africa that have used this Proprietary this method, for more than 60 years

There is a company called Rand Refineries that processes all the Gold and Silver produced by the gold mines in South Africa. They use a method that bubbles
Dry Chlorine Gas into a container holding Molten Dore' metal from where Chlorides formed that float on top of the molten Gold, making an effective separation of Gold and Silver. This has been Profitably done for over a hundred Years

 

[Barstool miner]

I have noticed some segregation of metals in large pours into cone molds. The alloy I observed consisted of primarily Tin, with an unknown quantity of Bronze thrown into the mix.I will post a picture of this when I get the time. I don't know what the recovery rate would be, from letting it cool slowly, but feel if this was an industry standard, we would all adopt this technique.

And your Point Is?

 

[goldshark]

And your Point Is?

Just replying to your post at 4:15 yesterday. Not saying some segregation may occur, due to varying specific gravity, but definitely not over 90%. You will end up spending more time trying to recover the 10%, then you would if you just processed it using say the Parkes method, or cupellation, depending on amount processed.

 

[Barstool miner]

Just replying to your post at 4:15 yesterday. Not saying some segregation may occur, due to varying specific gravity, but definitely not over 90%. You will end up spending more time trying to recover the 10%, then you would if you just processed it using say the Parkes method, or cupellation, depending on amount processed.

Thank you Goldshark, I understand your point of view.

 

[Jim Morrison]

Hi all i am new here, i join this forum to learn from you. In the mean time please ask me anything.

Hello, I would like to message with you.

 

[Yggdrasil]

Hello, I would like to message with you.

Welcome to us.

 

[kelibern]

It is funny how everybody wants to find a "environmentally friendly solution". The mere act of a human living in todays world, is very environmentally unfriendly. Even when the person is consciencely trying to leave a friendly footprint. I am not being judgmental, as I admit I am a consumer of non planet friendly goods ( whatever that means ). What cracks me up the most though, are the "Greenies " jumping up and down, screaming and yelling about how miners are messing up, and killing the planet. After their rants, they drive off in their Tesla, or other EV, feeling good about themselves because they just did their part to " Save the planet ".

You read my mind. As long as we continue to use every product that contains" technology" we need these environmentally unfriendly heavy industries.
Yes most of the solutions are NOT environmentally friendly on Mines. However, serious engineering application and R&D works are performed to minimize the impact on environment. Most of many publicly traded mining companies are regulated at an international level, so there is no shortcuts on these solutions. They must report everything they do in the most accurate and transparent way.

 

[kelibern]

I live in an area that was dredged commercially during the gold rush. Tons of dredge tailings piles. This area also has a lot of Pt in the tailings as the primary method of gold recovery was mercury and Pt is not attracted to mercury like gold is, so the dredge operators didn't try to save the Pt and it was allowed to wash back into the discharge tailings.

In your opinion, what is the best way to try and recover the Pt from the existing tailings? Would another wash plant (designed for heavy metals) be the only answer?

Welcome aboard,
James

I can't say but wash plant would be the most reasonable. Let me search some literature. I will get back to you.

 

[kelibern]

welcome - It would be interesting to find out about mineral processing equipment could be adapted to liberate Au from PCB 's on an appropriate scale for e-waste processors.

Some of the recovery plants use electrostatic separator. But generally most of the plants smelt everything and do gravity seperation. Other than that, good old fashioned and extremely dangerous aqua regia leaching.