Gravity Separation & Concentration Methods

Gravity Separation & Concentration Methods

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low grade gold ore (2 replies and 1 comment)

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NOBRAINER
6 years ago
NOBRAINER 6 years ago

Hello i am from Indonesia, We currently had a bulk of about 500,000m/t oxide ore grade from 0.4-0.7grams per ton, there is no visible gold. At first we plan to do dump leaching but the test show only 35 percent recovery and after crushing to minus 1 inches recovery shows 75% after 6 weeks and we also did a vat leaching test it show 88% recovery after 3 days at the size of minus 1 mm. The head assay was 0.55g/mt Au and Ag 55ppm. I would i to know if there is a way to concentrate this type of low grade ore or it is economics to do so and if falcon or knelson will do the job?

I
jonesy0077
6 years ago
jonesy0077 6 years ago
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Pre-concentration of low grade gold ores has been successfully carried out utilizing DMS but of course it is ore type specific. This requires fractional densimetric test work to be carried to determine the optimal liberation (crushed ore size) required to obtain the mineral split.

Additionally test work is being carried out using XRT, not looking at gold itself which is in too low a concentration for detection, but looking at gold associated minerals. Speak to the major XRT suppliers such as Tomra and Steinert.

S
saguero
6 years ago

Have you considered flotation?...where in Indo are you located?....additional to jonesy0077 comment..you may need also to do QEMSCAN.

T
Todd H
6 years ago
Todd H 6 years ago
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As the previous post indicated there are ways to concentrate the gold but it will depend on the mineral association.  Ores can be sorted or concentrated exploiting any number of characteristics; color, SG, minerals (sulfides), radioactivity, magnetism, etc....  It all depends on the mineralogy.

If this deposit only consists of 500,000 tonnes (I think that is what m/t means) it may not warrant a large capital expenditure due to the relatively small tonnage.  Ideally you need to conduct a preliminary economic analysis where engineers review the deposit, test work and develop some options for treatment based on the economics.  These types of investigations cost in the range of $40-$100k excluding test work (if necessary).  If you need assistance please let me know.

 

Regards

Todd

Todd Harvey - Global Resource Engineering http://www.global-resource-eng.com

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