Is there in microns a point beyond which gold is no longer recoverable

[Nirvanadirt]

Hello good folks I'm just wondering if there is a measurable size of flower gold that is no longer practical or even possible to recover? I think we all know about the gold that floats on top of your pan and all the dishwashing magical mixes and soaps use to combat that however is there a point at which gold just gets too small to capture ?
Looking forward to any imput as I have a possible solution if there is a threshold.

 

[Goldtalk Leonora]

too many variables I would think. We capture gold in gravity circuits (GRG=Gravity recoverable Gold) that would go around 2-300 mesh....so you need a loupe to see it.

The solution is simple for the small stuff.....CIP/CIL plants....use cyanide.

 

[grubstake]

Or for small scale (artisanal) mining, use the age-old, quick and dirty method: mercury amalgamation. :skull:

 

[20x]

Something interesting I thought I will ad..
'Flour gold" = traveled and smashed thin..
But I've discovered that there is another, ultra thin reef gold that behaves in the pan the same way..

 

[JakeofallTrades]

To answer the question IMO accurately the Recoverable Gold is dependent upon which style of prospecting (method) your doing and also the scale (size) of operations and too factor in the benchmark of when it no longer becomes viable to recover. (costs, price of gold, quantity of material, skills, knowledge and time/effort)

 

[grubstake]

To answer the question IMO accurately the Recoverable Gold is dependent upon which style of prospecting (method) your doing and also the scale (size) of operations and too factor in the benchmark of when it no longer becomes viable to recover. (costs, price of gold, quantity of material, skills, knowledge and time/effort)

These are all valid points for an economic analysis, but they do NOT answer the question that was asked.

 

[20x]

Micro gold in this stuff, tons n tons of it but not worth th effort..

 

[Nirvanadirt]

To answer the question IMO accurately the Recoverable Gold is dependent upon which style of prospecting (method) your doing and also the scale (size) of operations and too factor in the benchmark of when it no longer becomes viable to recover. (costs, price of gold, quantity of material, skills, knowledge and time/effort)

These are all valid points for an economic analysis, but they do NOT answer the question that was asked.

Thanks Grubstake!!
I will reveal my idea as soon as I check a couple of things that have been mentioned however does anyone have a micron size that could not be captured with today's messages etcetera whether practical or not or economical or not is there a number ?

 

[grubstake]

Cyanide (as used in modern CIP/CIL processes), dissolves gold, so I think minimum gold particle size is irrelevant. Mercury absorbs gold and forms an amalgam, I don't think gold particle size is relevant to this either.

 

[Simmo]

Sulphides...

 

[Goldtalk Leonora]

To answer the question IMO accurately the Recoverable Gold is dependent upon which style of prospecting (method) your doing and also the scale (size) of operations and too factor in the benchmark of when it no longer becomes viable to recover. (costs, price of gold, quantity of material, skills, knowledge and time/effort)

These are all valid points for an economic analysis, but they do NOT answer the question that was asked.

Thanks Grubstake!!
I will reveal my idea as soon as I check a couple of things that have been mentioned however does anyone have a micron size that could not be captured with today's messages etcetera whether practical or not or economical or not is there a number ?

I can only speak for what we do.....lets forget chemicals as most prospectors only work on gravity. A "good" concentrator will recover gold down to around 50 microns which is 250 Mesh or 0.058mm ....more or less.

 

[JakeofallTrades]

To answer the question IMO accurately the Recoverable Gold is dependent upon which style of prospecting (method) your doing and also the scale (size) of operations and too factor in the benchmark of when it no longer becomes viable to recover. (costs, price of gold, quantity of material, skills, knowledge and time/effort)

These are all valid points for an economic analysis, but they do NOT answer the question that was asked.

With all respect, I disagree and I'll explain, every style will have a limit as to what "size" gold will be recoverable, so its very important to know his style to address "the limit" otherwise you could say any gold, even that under a microscope is "recoverable" but is this being realistic? I think not.
If he is metal detecting than approx 0.03
If he is panning than gold contained within the black sands.
If he is hard rock than ores with Tellurides & Sulfides.

Then the scale is important along with the latest in technology, Look at KCGM if you really want to know how "fine/low" you can go.
http://www.superpit.com.au/

 

[SteveG]

All gold can be recovered, no matter how small.

 

[G0lddigg@]

simple answer is yes, there's alot of low grade sulphide rich ore out there that's just not practical to recover for the average prospector. i know of a mine in vic where the ore is less than 0.1 g/t the old timers processed some by paddock leaching before roast and cyanide but the yields were way to low to turn a profit. the guy whos running it now is able to extract the other products within the ore and is just in alittle profit but he had to invest millions in the processing plant whihc is house in a large warehouse built 2km from his mine.

i've taken geos to mines to sample in vic where they swore there was no gold in the pan at cleanup, but after dropping a gram of mercury into the pan then processing by retort we were able to show a 11 gram per tonne sample, you rally couldn;t see this stuff in the pan at all.

 

[Nirvanadirt]

Ok so to clear up a few things let's leave chemicals out of this equation and say gold that can be recovered using mechanical (and by mechanical I mean any process that physically gets the gold concentrated on one spot that is not a chemical process and anyone could do without setting up a 20 billion dollar plant) so basically anything that could be trapped by gravity, centrifugal force, panning etc. At what point would 90% of people give up at no let's say 95 for all those that really pursue getting gold as a hobby rather than a financial endeavour. What would be the physical cut off point where you would need to turn to chemicals to physically be able to recover the most challenging of gold particles even if we're talking 0.001 grams to the ton could this be recovered without chemicals? I don't believe that it could so what micron do we find that no matter how we fit much we persist we cannot recover that amount of gold though it is there and what that measurement would be in microns. (I'd like to cover every type of gold source i.e. ore, alluvial etcetera so the Lott)
There a lot of very smart people on this forum and I'm just trying to gauge where the cut off point is in microns where if you were hell-bent on getting every possible bit of gold from the ore you've crushed, dirt you moved and panned, highbanked, sluices or whatever your process is. If there must be a process chosen for there to be a concise answer I would say my process would be high banking.

 

[Swinging & digging]

From a hobbyist perspective the main recovery methods for fine gold are via a sluice gravity separation system.
There are many variations to systems used and gold recovery rates would vary to a degree. Also feed rate and wether clay
is present in the wash would effect potential recovery. Some alluvial gold is very flat and more difficult to recover.

I would suspect that an average system would recover say 85% of the fine gold down to 60 mesh.
Some people have better success with more modern recovery mats like dream mat but remember classifying material and feed rates etc all effect overall recovery.
There will be losses to some degree of the finer gold if present, and they may not be off concern, loosing 0.1 of a gram while recovering 0.8 of a gram is still a success
for an average hobbyist.

 

[Nirvanadirt]

Ok so say I kept all the water that washed off the finest of gold how small would it have to be before I can no longer through a non chemical method collect it?
What I'm trying to find is a point of failure of our known/used methods of non chemical gold collection.
So for the purpose of this mental exercise I take a shovel of dirt off the bank put it through the highbanker,
I notice the nugget in my tailings (score), grab the pickers all the matts that I have on my 12ft extension on my highbanker which has every Matt on the market and all possible home made matts attached to it and grab all the pickers off (yay) then take all that water and other stuff running off the end of my Hbanker and having been being collected what is the next step and the next and so on until there is no gold left in the water/cons that only G0lDigg@'s mercury or a microscope could prove otherwise. Where can we draw a line as all the gold having been recovered from my shovel of bank? Is there a micron size on which we can say that beyond this you won't be able to acquire over time a vial of gold of this (?) size or smaller unless you resort to chemical collection methods?
It's a harder question than the face of it and thought that someone else might have been down this road of thought and followed it to an end?!

 

[Tathradj]

There was a high speed centrifical recovery machine that could recover down to paste. ?

For the average prospector bashing around with a high banker or sluice,
Only what you can see really.

I am aware that the heavies left over can yield more but, dangerous to the average user.

 

[Tathradj]

A lot of folks pan off the visable gold and save the heavies for later to think about.

I used a self made Miller Table and was recovering dust off that so fine,
It would blow away in the wind.

 

[Swinging & digging]

You can't go digging into banks to recover your gold as its against prospecting regulations.
Just because a number of U Tube prospectors are doing it does not mean it's allowed.