How to separate gold flour from very fine sand and dirt?

Question

I would like to know how to separate gold flour from a bunch of sand and dirt. I would rather not do this chemically as that can easily lead to spills and possible heath problems. I've had it assayed and it is a good purcentage gold, but I'm too new to prospecting to do this properly (first time actually) anyhow any help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

Good question, the first question is whether or not this gold is refractory or not...this is to say if it is contained in any other material. If so the issue becomes daunting and geochemistry must be involved. If the gold is in a natural state, dissiociated from the other materials you can separate it by washing/screening and gravity separation (I get the impression it has already been pulverised so we'll skip the whole crushing the rock part... ). Manually the simplest method is panning (good for small samples)...here is a good example of what I am talking about

http://www.extrac-tec.com/pages/process.htm

there are a large number of different types of gravity separators, all run by the same principal: gold is dense and heavy an therefore it is possible to sift off the lighter materials using something like water and vibrations until only the heaviest material is left (i.e. gold)

good luck

Answer 2

Heavy fluids are out if you don't want to use chemicals.

What you can do is use counter-flow sedimentation, but that takes a small series of funnel-like basins connected via overflows. These funnels are fed a slow current of water from the bottom, basically simulating very tall sedimentation cylinders.

You make a slurry of your sand with water, then feed the slurry slowly into the first funnel. The water feed from below should cause most of the finer slurry to go over into the next funnel.

Since gold is a lot heavier than sand and dirt, three funnels ought to be sufficient to retain all the gold flour. The material in the later funnels may still contain sand - repeat the process...

After sedimentation of the fine stuff (or filtration through sand) you can reuse the water, no chemicals involved.

Answer 3

No ****, the first question I have seen on here that actually makes sense, flour or float is notorious. how much can you concentrate. is it worth selling that concentrate, is it better to extract some of the values for custom sales and sell the remaining values. The questions are all so dependant on where you are and not only the available grades but the proven reserves. I am in Alberta. my email is [e-mail]
too old and messed up to get serious about staking these days. But placer sniping is still a fun time.
you might want to run a gold wheel or , there are too many systems to start this discussion on. if you can get down to a good black concentrate and assay that then you have a place to start from. once you have values the rest is just measurements and estimates. the percentage recovery is not as important if you can do bulk samples, or pit. if you are looking at a small placer streak it may only justify a couple of weekends with a small sluice and a pan for proving your tailings. (kind of hit and run) but that is all a lot of pockets and glory hole bonanzas merit. If you stake and have a real strike remember your best advice was from me, and smile about it on the way to the shareholders meetings, you old ***********

by the way: RYAN Is offering some of the best advice that you can be given, at least for free.

Answer 4

Flour Gold

Answer 5

get a pan, put some water in it and the mixture and swish it around, letting the top bit swirl out.

gold is heavier and will sink to the bottom.

The last bit you have left is the gold.