Waste treatment system at Gold Refinery

[4metals]

We are not trying to discourage you by pointing these things out. With all you have spent on your setup it’s a bit late for that.

Working with chemicals, Toxic gases, causes Cancer, Menial level of work, High energy consumption, Corrosion of metals, High risk, Low profit.

We are trying to help you assure that you can minimize these effects with proper maintenance and precautions. You want to be proactive not reactive.

 

[Yggdrasil]

I live in the woods in rural Pennsylvania. The road I live on is a dirt road and in the summer it is quite dusty. The “fix” to the dust issue is calcium chloride spread on the roads to control the dust. Multiple treatments over the course of the summer assure that our cars rust out in 4 years.

In Norway they salt the roads to a salty flour every winter. Brake discs, undercarriage and chassis dies fast under these conditions.

 

[Gold.refinery]

You want to be proactive not reactive.

I will try not to be disappointed but…

There are other job opportunities, with less risk and better opportunities.
Whenever losses are prevented, there is profit.

The mind both produces motivation and kills motivation.

 

[orvi]

I live in the woods in rural Pennsylvania. The road I live on is a dirt road and in the summer it is quite dusty. The “fix” to the dust issue is calcium chloride spread on the roads to control the dust. Multiple treatments over the course of the summer assure that our cars rust out in 4 years.

"Nice". Here the same issue, whole chassis of car is wrecked in few years, if not washed properly, or coated with protective layer of paint/epoxy/polymer.

 

[orvi]

I will try not to be disappointed but…

There are other job opportunities, with less risk and better opportunities.
Whenever losses are prevented, there is profit.

The mind both produces motivation and kills motivation.

Keep your head up, with your help, we will steadily get it together and it will work. We can only give you our best points and advice, it´s you who must do the work. And things we advise are often cheap to build/make/alter, or even for free.
But I completely understand your dissapointment. I now face similar issues, but with other precious metal

 

[Shark]

It can be hard to keep looking forward when your not sure where the road leads to. Once you reach your destination the next trip becomes easier.

 

[Palladium]

Adversity builds character brother! It's what sets the winners apart from the losers.
The things we are telling you and pointing out are from experienced refiners. They have already made the mistakes so you don't have to. The value of the wisdom you are given here will not only assure your success, but i would argue is worth more than the value of the gold you are refining. Your into this pretty deep at this point, keep your head up and moving forward. Reverse is not an option. You have the equipment and these guys have the knowledge. That's a winning combination!

 

[Gold.refinery]

Orvi
Shark
Palladium
4metal

The conditions of our workshop have improved since the day we decided to share the issues. With each point we changed correctly, a light came on in the dark.

Some changes can be made quickly, but some take time and the equipment needs to be improved.

We do not have enough refining knowledge, it seems that the equipment manufacturer also intended to impose his incomplete knowledge.

If a professional refiner is present in our workshop for a few days, many problems will be solved.

 

[billgold]

Now you are getting the idea. Possibly one of the best investments you could make would be to hire one of the EU experts here, such as orvi, to spend a bit of time in your facility and help you develop both a step-by-step processing plan including what tests to perform before moving to the next step - as well as helping create a check list of what modifications/additions need to be done to make the machinery operate at its best.

I would NOT rely on the manufacturer or any of their representatives - for any advice/instruction. Their advice to use aluminum instead of copper told me they either do not follow best practices or the plant is designed to handle feed material only containing gold, silver and copper.

 

[Gold.refinery]

Their advice to use aluminum instead of copper told me they either do not follow best practices or the plant is designed to handle feed material only containing gold, silver and copper.

Other members said that aluminum was not a good choice because it was more reactive than all the base metals and cemented them all. But what do you mean our device is designed for gold, silver and copper. Is it permissible to cement with aluminum to refine gold and silver only?

 

[EMRE]

Orvi
Shark
Palladium
4metal

The conditions of our workshop have improved since the day we decided to share the issues. With each point we changed correctly, a light came on in the dark.

Some changes can be made quickly, but some take time and the equipment needs to be improved.

We do not have enough refining knowledge, it seems that the equipment manufacturer also intended to impose his incomplete knowledge.

If a professional refiner is present in our workshop for a few days, many problems will be solved.

Dear gold.refinery,

I will share my two cents;
I am Turkish, you are probably Turkish too living in UK who wanted to get into commercial gold refining with no knowledge. Instead of going to Fiori or Italimpiant, you went to a Turkish fabricator ( I know most of them since I am in the business) and purchased whatever they told you to buy. You probably paid 25% of what you could have paid to Italians. The problem is non of those manufacturers have chemists on their payroll who specialize in gold refining. They do not even know how to refine gold properly. There are four major gold refineries in Turkey ( two are LBMA approved) and non of them use standart equipment that you have. They use Italian machinery because they can buy the knowhow too. Frankly, a gold refining equipment manufacturer who tells you to use ammonia in NOx scrubber, or make you 2 liters of Stannous is an *****!! (edited for clarity!)
Here are the good news from what I gathered reading 5 hours of thread;
1. you are in good hands because there are very knowledgeable people here responding to your questions. I know 4metals in person and worked with him on some of my projects. He is as good as it gets. Although i do not know Lou in person, I know he is super good too.
2. You want to make 995 gold. That is great because your equipment will never yield 9999 ICP verifiable product. ( well, technically it is but it would bankrupt you )
3. Your equipment is capable of producing 99.87% fine gold in a single pass. Just cut it down to 995 with silver and be done with it.
4. Do not complicate it. 1:4 AR then kill it with urea, cool it down to10c if you can, drop it with SMB and you will get 99.87. All are explained to you.
5. Do not your aluminum to drop base metals. Turks recommend it but they do not even know why they recommend it. I will tell you why; it is cheaper than copper thats why!!! and you end up with more junk at the end.
6. Try to find your leakage. Mostly it will be in the Agcl. Rinse everything with water and rinse very well. You should not see any green color stains on your equipment after every batch.

I hope you can achieve a profitable business. This is a very low profit margin industry.

PS: I did not see it being mentioned here but I think our mentors should look into inquarting your feedstock with silver first, run it with nitric, then AR with your existing equipment. You test this out with 75% au and 6% Ag incoming material. In reality, at least in USA, your feedstock will be 55%Au and 8-11% ag with balance base material. Your reaction will stop and your will end up with 600 gr of insoluble material due to Agcl freeze.

Good luck..

PS: Try to hire a chemist if you can but I know it is not easy, it seems like you need need one for the time being. 4Metals fees would have been probably up to $30K by now. And I am not joking!! You are lucky you found this forum.

 

[Yggdrasil]

Other members said that aluminum was not a good choice because it was more reactive than all the base metals and cemented them all. But what do you mean our device is designed for gold, silver and copper. Is it permissible to cement with aluminum to refine gold and silver only?

Since you are processing and refining mostly karat gold??
You I’ll not achieve anything by Al cementing. You will cement out all the metals dissolved in the AR process.

Copper will cement out only PMs.
Then you will have a clean Au Ag PGM mix.
Then AR and drop the Gold with SMB hen cement the Silver or create AgCl.

 

[orvi]

Now you are getting the idea. Possibly one of the best investments you could make would be to hire one of the EU experts here, such as orvi, to spend a bit of time in your facility and help you develop both a step-by-step processing plan including what tests to perform before moving to the next step - as well as helping create a check list of what modifications/additions need to be done to make the machinery operate at its best.

I would NOT rely on the manufacturer or any of their representatives - for any advice/instruction. Their advice to use aluminum instead of copper told me they either do not follow best practices or the plant is designed to handle feed material only containing gold, silver and copper.

In my life, the biggest batch of gold I refined was around 100g. In a 2L beaker. I am no expert in the field of the kilo scale refining in tumbler plants, altough I know the chemistry behind. As I would maybe capable of improving something in place, I don´t feel this will work as it would if somebody like Lou, 4metals or AMS-Pro would visit his facility

 

[Gold.refinery]

I sometimes encounter the need to concentrate dilute values (AuAg) - say 0,3-0,5g from 3 liters of solution. In these cases, I add like 10 grams of copper powder to the stirred solution and let it mix for like one hour. Then I filter the solution and redissolve the powder in AR.
You can also use the same principle, but stirring is necessary.

Eventually, if you add aluminium, all the nickel, copper and also the gold will precipitate. What happen next is that good portion of the less reactive metals like nickel or iron will cement out even more copper - simultaneously passing to the solution as ferric or nickel ions. Sounds good, you say, I create copper in the solution, that´s what I wanted - but you will precipitate awful lot of metal sludge which needs to be processed AGAIN.
Your intention is to GET RID OF THE BASE METALS, that is why you refine the gold. Not to just stick aluminium to the precipitation tank to get them back and repeating the process one more time, with values even more diluted.

We started the New refining operation and made some changes. I will submit the report as soon as it is completed. I am very interested in reporting as soon as possible.

Niw, We are making cement with copper.
We have a tank after taking the gold from the solution. Two tanks that do not have a mixer, we want to cement with copper plates and air pipe (according to 4metal recommendation)

and the other two tanks have a mixer, cement with copper powder.

Since we are now doing small operations to gain experience, the volume of cement solution is small, on the other hand we want to complete the gold deficiency report and compare the results after the changes are made.
For example, in our tank with a height of 66 cm, there is only 25 cm of solution.

Is it possible to make cement with copper plates or just use copper powder?
Should copper powder be aotmize or not? (We have copper powder from previous operations that has been removed from the solution with aluminum)

 

[4metals]

When cementing metals, the trick is contact. The gold and PGM's in solution need to physically contact the copper. When you use a tank that is only partially full, you are not utilizing the copper slabs optimally.

For example, in our tank with a height of 66 cm, there is only 25 cm of solution.

But the real question is why are you chasing a few grams of gold for every lot? Quantify your yields on a lot by lot basis and only spend your time searching for lost gold when your yield is off by 0.25% of your expected yield. And search the chlorides first because that is where it will likely be.

If you do this you will be running the cementation tanks when they are full, your labor will be less and you will recover your lost values.

Is it possible to make cement with copper plates or just use copper powder?

Copper plates are slower but effective. Copper powder, not cemented copper from the aluminum drop but fine copper powder (atomized works best) requires good mixing because if those fine copper particles settle to the bottom they are not effectively contacting the solution and they are no more effective than the copper slabs. That is why we suggested using powdered copper in the tanks with good mixing, preferably with a propeller and shaft.

If you quantify your losses for each lot you will have the luxury of time for cementation to work more effectively because you will not be chasing your tail looking for small quantities. If that much gold is getting into your waste it is from errors made in precipitation and testing or mechanical issues with your equipment. Look in your chlorides first, I'd bet the farm that's where you'll find them most of the time, barring mechanical failure.

 

[Gold.refinery]

Since we want to use SMB in future operations, I need to explain more about the route of tank ventilation systems and a separate workshop ventilation system. Each tank has a 3-inch chimney that sucks the air fan towards the scrubbers. According to the photo.

On the other hand, we have a separate air fan that drains the air of the workshop 24hours/7days.


I know that if smb is used, the solutions will accumulate for several days until they reach the cementing stage with copper and finally the filter press. We will have annoying gases in the workshop environment.
Question: Should I pipe another new route for each tank to the air drain fan? Or is it better to turn on the Air Fan Scrubber when we have the solution in the tanks?

 

[Gold.refinery]

Cu Cementation Stage:

For two cylindrical tanks, we want to equip it with cementation with copper plates.
let us know if there is a problem.

The solution is now 50 liters, after two more operations it is ready for cementation.

The place of the holes is suitable for sufficient contact of copper and solution?
What thickness of copper plate is better? At what height of the cylinder?

 

[Yggdrasil]

Cu Cementation Stage:

For two cylindrical tanks, we want to equip it with cementation with copper plates.
let us know if there is a problem.

The solution is now 50 liters, after two more operations it is ready for cementation.

The place of the holes is suitable for sufficient contact of copper and solution?
What thickness of copper plate is better? At what height of the cylinder?

The upper holes are not necessary if the whole tube are suspended under the surface.
What is necessary is an air bubbling tube into approximately the lower end of the big tube, such that the air drags liquid up over the copper plate.

 

[4metals]

Question: Should I pipe another new route for each tank to the air drain fan? Or is it better to turn on the Air Fan Scrubber when we have the solution in the tanks?

You can run a separate exhaust to each tank to run when you are not scrubbing the gasses or you can use the existing ductwork and switch to a non scrubbed exhaust through tee’s and blast gate shutoffs so you can either scrub or just exhaust when not running any noxious gasses in need of scrubbing. Like overnight.

 

[EMRE]

If I were you, I would cancel the middle pipe with holes. Just take it out. I dont think air bubbles will create enough movement of liquid into the pipe and out from the holes. You would need kind of a propeller for that. I think as is it is restrictive.. I would get few copper sheets as wide ad possible and submerse them in to the tank and let the air do its job. the thicker the plate the better it is. technically you are replacing gold ions with copper so copper plate will disappear. We use two plates that are 6" wide, 3 feet long and 1/2 inch thick. we always keep them in it the tank and occasionally take it out and rub them off.