• Improving Gold Recovery from Artisanal Tailings in East Africa
  • Introduction
  • Understanding Gangue and Liberated Gold Particles
    • Distinguishing Gangue and Liberated Gold Particles
  • Identifying Major Losses of Gold in the Process
    • Challenges Faced by Village Miners
  • Procedure for Improved Gold Recovery from Tailings
    • Step 1: Recovering Liberated Gold Particles
    • Step 2: Re-Milling and Gold Grade Verification
    • Step 3: Expanding Recovery Methods Based on Results
    • Step 4: Leaching and Final Gold Recovery
  • Tailings Processing Services

Improving Gold Recovery from Artisanal Tailings in East Africa

Introduction

This page discusses methods to improve gold recovery from artisanal tailings in East Africa. It provides an overview of the challenges faced by village miners and outlines a procedure for starting a gold recovery business in Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya.

Understanding Gangue and Liberated Gold Particles

Distinguishing Gangue and Liberated Gold Particles

• Gangue: In the context of primary gold recovery, gangue refers to the non-valuable minerals and rocks that are mixed with the ore. It does not contain significant amounts of gold. However, after the primary recovery process, approximately 20-30% of the gold may still remain trapped in the gangue. Additional methods, such as leaching, are required to extract the remaining gold from the gangue.

• Liberated Gold Particles: Liberated gold particles are the gold particles that have been separated from the gangue and are free to be recovered.

Identifying Major Losses of Gold in the Process

Challenges Faced by Village Miners

Village miners in East Africa face several challenges that lead to significant losses of gold during the recovery process. These challenges include:

1. Use of Wooden Sluices with Jute Matting: Many village miners use wooden sluices with jute matting for gold recovery. However, these sluices are not efficient in capturing fine gold particles and result in gold losses.

2. Use of Mercury: The use of mercury by village miners poses serious environmental and health risks. Mercury fails to capture the smallest gold particles due to its surface tension, leading to significant gold losses.

3. Insufficient Stages of Concentration: Village miners often concentrate gold only once, resulting in incomplete separation of gold from gangue and additional gold losses.

4. Inadequate Crushing and Grinding Machinery: The lack of proper machinery for crushing and grinding the ore leads to inefficient liberation of gold particles. As a result, a significant portion of gold remains embedded in gravel and sand particles.

Procedure for Improved Gold Recovery from Tailings

Step 1: Recovering Liberated Gold Particles

To maximize gold recovery, the following steps are taken:

1. Use specialized SYOGM Fine Gold Recovery Sluices designed for efficient gold capture.

2. Process a specific quantity of tailings, such as 10 tonnes or 100 tonnes, using the fine gold recovery sluices.

3. By utilizing these sluices, capture 98% - 99.9% of the fine gold particles liberated from the tailings.

Step 2: Re-Milling and Gold Grade Verification

After recovering the liberated gold particles, the next step involves re-milling the tailings and verifying the gold grade. The process includes:

1. Re-milling the tailings to further break down the material and release additional gold particles.

2. Analyzing and verifying the gold grade by recovering and assessing the amount of gold obtained after the re-milling process.

Step 3: Expanding Recovery Methods Based on Results

Based on the results obtained from the re-milling process, the following actions are taken:

1. If re-milling demonstrates a significant improvement in gold recovery, proceed to re-mill all of the tailings using appropriate rock mills and scale up processing capacities if required.

2. If re-milling does not yield favorable results, focus on the direct recovery of liberated gold particles and skip the re-milling step.

Step 4: Leaching and Final Gold Recovery

To further optimize gold recovery, the following steps are undertaken:

1. Analyze the particle sizes after re-milling and use non-invasive and environmentally-friendly leaching agents (not cyanide) to recover gold from the tailings. Use tanks and leaching methods for this purpose.

2. Analyze the results of the leaching process and determine if any gold is left in the tailings. If necessary, devise additional methods to recover the remaining gold, such as inexpensive milling improvements.

Tailings Processing Services

By implementing the above procedure, significant improvements can be achieved in gold recovery from artisanal tailings in East Africa. Services are offered to process tailings efficiently, train staff members, and provide specialized equipment, such as rock mills and fine gold recovery sluices, to optimize gold recovery. The potential profits for tailings owners are immense.

Contact us to Start Your Own Gold Mine

Contact us to Start Your Own Gold Mine. There is a simple rule at Start Your Own Gold Mine: if we can help you, we do, whenever and wherever necessary, and it's the way we've been doing business since 2002, and the only way we know

Contact Mr. Jean Louis by Telegram at username @rcdrun or by WhatsApp Business. Or call Mr. Louis at +256706271008 in Uganda or send SMS to +256706271008