Using Mercury to capture gold

[Anonymous]

The moderator moved it to General Chat thread in case anyone is looking for it. Maybe you just never got to see it in the first place. It is not a spoof, but a genuine look at how it is currently being used, and permitted by the government's Geological Department in the nation of Guyana.

 

[ChucknC]

This is an example of what has happened to stigmatize Hg due to the irresponcibility of miners from the 1800's. People today don't understand Hg any better now than then. Hg can be an excellent tool for gold recovery, or it can be a hazard. It all depends on how it is used.

Mercury is not deadly upon simple exposure. It does however pose a problem with CHRONIC exposure to fumes and an extremely severe danger to the organic alcohol methyl mercury. This stuff is extremely toxic. It's also what some habadashers used in making hatbands.(mad as a hatter) That helped to give Hg a bad name. We still use mecurichrome as an antibiotic. During the Civil War it was mixed with honey and called methyl blue as a medicine.

A simple way to store Hg, without it evaporating, is to store it under a weak solution of NaOH. Also, if your working blacksands, add acouple of tablespoons of weak NaOH to tumbler and tumble the blacksands, Hg, and NaOH together. The Hg won't pill as bad, and will recover more gold.

Here is a good article written by Prof. Ken Williams PHD:
http://webpages.charter.net/kwilliams00/bcftp/docs/mercury.htm
He was a character and a good mentor. He was killed in a fall at his home in Coasta Rica back on THanksgiving 2005. I still miss his wit and advice.

In working with anything used to recover and refine precious metals, we work with potentiallly deadly chemicals all the time. It simply comes down to 2 things:
1) Use every safety precaution necessary for your safety(gloves, fume hood, eye protection etc)
2) If you are afraid or unsure of a substance, don't use it. Fear will make someone screw up faster than respect for chemicals.

Chuck

 

[toadiesop]

My mother's boyfriend used to pan in Arizona around the 70's using the exact same method that AgAuPtRh posted.

He was very careful but he said a lot of people weren't. They would just handle the Hg, no gloves, and at the end of the day, they would take their shoes off and dump out the Hg, THAT HAD SEEPED THROUGH THEIR BODY OUT OUT THEIR FEET!!!!

:shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock:

This guy is a walking gold encyclopedia. He's old school cycanide/Hg and of course swears by that method, but I can't wait to show him whats possible with all these new fangdangled processes us kids have these days. :lol:

 

[Anonymous]

I don't begin to claim the knowledge the guys on this board have. I have played with small mining for many years. The old timers used mercury to collect the small gold from their pan. They had two major ways of seperating the gold from the mercury. One method was to carefully cut a plug out of a potato, pour in the "Malgum," as they called it, and replace the cone shaped wedge on the potato. It would then be placed in a camp fire. The heat from the fire would heat the mercury and drive it into the potato, leaving the gold. Afte extracting the gold they would squeeze the potato to recover the mercury.

The other method was to squeeze the amalgum through a web chami skin. This they did with their hands.

Keen engineering sells mercury retorts, and, if used properly, are safe. Like working with any reagent, caution is the moto.

I have been around a lot of miners who used mercury. They always ran the retort outside. They also used something, probably what was posted here earlier, to clear the patina from black sands in the tumbler so the mercuty could come in direct contact with the black sands. The black sands were first crushed to about 600 fineness in order for the mercury to work on the small particles of gold that were exposed by the grinding process. Depending on the location, some black sands can be very rich in gold and pgm's.

 

[Seamus]

Thinking of mercury use:
Mercury is a metal that should NOT be used in gold refining by anyone without proper training and safety gear. Please do not let your mercury get over room temp on a cool day and keep it in a sealed container at all times and out of reach from children. Retort mercury outside and down wind from you in a non populated area.
I worked in the medical field and saw mercury poisoning, as well as other poisonings. Gold is a great hobby and an investment to be appreciated by many people. But dead men tell no tails of gold recovery and or refining. I hate to be on my soap box, but please use precaution to live long and prosper in your refining. I would like to hear your grandchildren talk about how you refined PM's safely for many decades.
This article is just a reminder to anyone thinking of useing mercury, to use extreme precaution with mercury and other chemicals.

 

[Anonymous]

If you still think about it, check out the story of the kids who broke a water-bath thermometer (contains maybe 8 Oz of Hg) in their parent's homes. Two family homes were knocked down by the EPA, and the families were billed something like $2 million EACH for the hazmat cleanup and disposal! You want some guys with bulldozers knocking your house down and then billing you to have it buried somewhere?

Jon[/quote]

I doubt that story could be proven, although if you call the gov for such a thing I guess it could be possilble.

Sound like the new flourescent light story were someone dropped a compact one and ended up spending 2,000 for clean up. We have had flourescent bulbs for many decades the only new part of them is putting a small enough ballast for them to work in place of A19 bulbs, people just throw the old flourescent lighting in the dumpster every day and they get broken, no hazmat, no secret agent, nothing.

Sorry, if I offend as I know that some will be.

 

[Oz]

James you did not offend me at least. The problem is that once EPA gets involved they must go to the extreme to cover their ass. With out going into details I know of situations where tap water is a hazmat. It contains fluoride and chlorine, both hazardous materials. As to cost, you can be sure that if a government agency does something it will always be more expensive than private industry.

 

[Absolutsecurity]

HG is ok to use for collection of gold am PM's if you are educated and carefull!
It is as safe as the acids and bases we all use maybe safer, because I never heard of anyone lossing an eye due to splashing HG or pulmonary edema from inhalation. You can undergo mercury chelation to remove it from your body if there is a accident - never heard of that with acid burns to the skin or lungs! :shock:

If you are using HG you need to know how to contain a spill (zinc powder) and how to clean it up - you also have to work with small enough quantities that you arent going to make trouble for yourself and always pour over a catch basin.

Its basic common sense that 90% of the general population lacks :roll: that is the problem. Dont use it if you havent studied and made your self familiar with it and dont get in over your head PLAIN AND SIMPLE!!!!!!!

BE CAREFUL WITH WHATEVER YOU DO!

Glynn

 

[Anonymous]

I came here to see if I could gather some specifics and see pictures of the tools and processes to process black sands for gold with Hg.

Instead I read a lot of hoopla about how dangerous Hg is. While I recognize that there are some dangers to Hg, it is really being blown out of proportion. Do you realize that more children die each year in the 5 gallon buckets we carry our dirt in than those who succumbed to Hg poisoning?

So let's make the assumption that those who are interested in Hg are also interested in safe practices and give them the whole info enchilada. Don't be cavalier, but don't get the torches either.

 

[butcher]

mercury can eaporate slowly at room temperature for years, if in the rug of a house people can be breathing it,mercury also oxidize's easily, and will not almagam well if not purified first, because it oxidizes easily and has such a low evaporating point should be stored under water in a jar.
and squeezing through a cotton filter or sweezed through a piece of leather does not seperate the gold from the mercury, it only seperate's the almagam from the unalmagamed mercury, and a retort to distill the mercury would be only safe way of recovery,
not the disolving it in nitric acid or the potato method, both very dangerous.
modern mercury retorts can be bought which also have a condenser.
there are many better ways to recover fine gold than mercury.
(although a natural substance in many of or rivers)
why mess with it, it can be dangerous and a pollutant.
I see no gain from using it at all for gold recovery nowadays.

I am not scared of it, but do see its dangers, and do see and hear of people who think they know about it using it dangerously, many third world countrys are poisioning themselves with it to get miniscule amounts of gold.

 

[Anonymous]

Butcher,

Good information. Did you all read that basement chemist link offered above? Also lots of good information.

It is unfortunate that there are morons out there who abuse things or do things that are dangerous to others through their ignorance or indifference. I don't, however, want my freedoms compromised by their shortcomings. That is why I would rather see the whole information provided rather than "just say no."

We can point at people who "use" alcohol, cars, firearms, prescription drugs, etc. poorly, but that does not mean the rest of us should be banned from using them.

That is my point.

Also, minuscule gold is all we have around here. The good thing about mercury is that you can continue to load it, until it is full of gold, before you process it out.

 

[Anonymous]

The good thing about mercury is that you can continue to load it, until it is full of gold, before you process it out.

the mercury will become oxidized and its effectiveness for amalgamating free gold will drop with successive 'loads'.

Readers, note again whats been said about mercurys high vapor pressure: it evaporates if open to the air so never (for example) check if your mercury has a smell or something. It should be kept underwater when it is being used because of its insolubility. Any 'tailing' from mercury soaked concentrates or ore is hazardous material and needs to be treated as such.

 

[Anonymous]

The good thing about mercury is that you can continue to load it, until it is full of gold, before you process it out.

the mercury will become oxidized and its effectiveness for amalgamating free gold will drop with successive 'loads'.

How do you tell that Mercury is oxidized? So far mine seems to work, remains the same color and is always stored and worked under water. I also rinse my sands before treatment with clean water before adding the mercury.

 

[butcher]

Safely retorting will eliminate oxides giving a pure mercury condensate that will almagam at its best, leaving behind the gold, some mercury oxide and any other impuritys the mercury picked up, basically you are distilling your mercury.some say should be tripple distilled.