Strip activated carbon with SSN

Gold Refining Forum

Help Support Gold Refining Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

oro-del-sur

Active member
Joined
Jun 2, 2012
Messages
38
Location
Costa Rica
We are a small mining operation in Costa Rica and are testing the Eco-Goldex product to leach whole ores and concentrates. The use of cyanide is strictly prohibited here so we are grateful to have access to a commercial leach product that has no restrictions. The testing so far in spite of our limited skills and lack of access to first world lab services has been positive. Recovery of small amounts of Au in the samples is by activated carbon, then dry, crush and smelt the carbon with some litharge and cupel in a small electric furnace.

This week we are leaching a 150 liter batch of concentrates with an estimated 50-60 grams of gold but I haven’t figured out the most practical method to process a few kilos of activated carbon. I've ashed 50g of carbon in the small electric furnace but ashing a few kilos in the open is tricky from what I can see. We don't yet have enough knowledge to set up and operate a stripper. So I am thinking maybe the SSN leach might strip the carbon. I’ve worked with it a bit in the past. It's very aggressive and theoretically would allow for precipitation with zinc or SMB which I have on hand. AR might be an option but HCL is restricted for public sale. Nitric however is available without restriction.

Does anyone have experience with stripping activated carbon with SSN?

Thank you!
 
Hi there

Just to be sure- - you are aware that eco goldex is a cyanide leach aren't you?
 
OK I only asked because you said the use of cyanide leaching was strictly forbidden there.
 
the use of cyanide is highly restricted in most places in Latin America. However there seems to be some kind of loophole with these "cyanide derivative" products. There are a few of these products on the market, all come from China. The Eco-Goldex product was developed in Canada by John Duo but the factory is in China. Eco-Goldex put on a workshop here in Costa Rica last year and some folks from the environmental ministry were there. The government here is trying to wean the artisanal people off of mercury. So this is part of that process. It's an experiment I suppose but the environmental aspect (at least the claims) of this derivative product seems to have opened up an opportunity for people like us to give it a try. We'll see how it goes. We are certainly grateful. We need to leach ores and stop amalgamating whole ores.
 
We are a small mining operation in Costa Rica and are testing the Eco-Goldex product to leach whole ores and concentrates. The use of cyanide is strictly prohibited here so we are grateful to have access to a commercial leach product that has no restrictions. The testing so far in spite of our limited skills and lack of access to first world lab services has been positive. Recovery of small amounts of Au in the samples is by activated carbon, then dry, crush and smelt the carbon with some litharge and cupel in a small electric furnace.

This week we are leaching a 150 liter batch of concentrates with an estimated 50-60 grams of gold but I haven’t figured out the most practical method to process a few kilos of activated carbon. I've ashed 50g of carbon in the small electric furnace but ashing a few kilos in the open is tricky from what I can see. We don't yet have enough knowledge to set up and operate a stripper. So I am thinking maybe the SSN leach might strip the carbon. I’ve worked with it a bit in the past. It's very aggressive and theoretically would allow for precipitation with zinc or SMB which I have on hand. AR might be an option but HCL is restricted for public sale. Nitric however is available without restriction.

Does anyone have experience with stripping activated carbon with SSN?

Thank you!
Do you use gold activated carbon or you can use water activated carbon ?
Both from coconut shell
 
Back
Top