RE: Board8 Feb 2022 09:52
On the lighter side guys…I am starting to think that during the course of testing for deleterious elements WA discovered we have Gold as a by product …..and hence the quietness and also possibly LRs resignation as that would have been his final c**kup !!!! Can’t think of any other reason for his sudden departure :-) ……and the silence from MC….maybe they are working out how to tell us this bad news :-) GLA.
I gleaned the below some time back off the internet…it’s worth a read.
“Although each ounce of gold recovered requires the processing of about 100,000 ounces of ore, there is so much gold deposited in rock veins that this method accounts for more than half of the world's total gold production today. The gold in the veins may be of microscopic particle size, in nuggets or sheets, or in gold compounds. Regardless of how it is found, the ore requires extensive extraction and refining. One third of all gold is produced as a by product of copper, lead, and zinc production. Copper, for example, must be electrolytically refined to raise its purity from 99% to more than 99.99% as required for many industrial purposes. In the refining process an anode of impure copper is electrolyzed in a bath in which the cathode is a very thin sheet of highly refined copper. As the process continues, copper ions leave the impure anode and are deposited as atoms on the cathode. Because impurities are not transported through the bath, as the anode is consumed, the impurities fall to the bottom as a sludge. This anode sludge contains gold in quantities sufficient to make recovery profitable. One third of all gold is obtained from such by products. Silver and platinum are also recovered from the copper anode sludge in quantities large enough to more than pay for the total refining process. In obtaining gold from vein ore, the ore is first crushed in rod or ball mills. This process reduces the ore to a powdery substance from which the gold can be extracted by amalgamation with mercury or by placer procedures. About 70% is recovered at this point. The remainder is dissolved in dilute solutions of sodium cyanide or calcium cyanide. The addition of metallic zinc to these solutions causes metallic gold to precipitate. This precipitate is refined by smelting. The purification is completed by electrolysis and the sludge produced will contain commercial quantities of silver, platinum, osmium, and other rare earth metals.“
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