MICRO & NANO PARTICLES
SO MUCH MORE.
Human eye can recognize particles maximum of 80 microns. Up to 60% of the inclusions of gold and platinum (in a leafy and spongy state) are not recovered by conventional technologies. We supply cost-effective solution based on reagents selectively interacting with noble metals.
The current global gold mining challenges concern the involvement of rebellious lean ores and waste materials distinguished for high content of finely dispersed micro and nano-gold into commercial production.
Flotation of complex ores provides concurrent recovery of gold to heavy non-ferrous metal concentrates. The conventional collecting agents for gold are potassium and sodium xanthates dithiophosphates and rarer dithiocarbamates, mercaptans, fat acid salts, etc. However, the above collectors are not selective to gold itself and actively float gold-bearing sulfides along with sulfides not containing gold.
In spite of intensive research activities aimed at improvement of gold recovery and development of new techniques intended to increase the contrast in properties of gold-bearing sulfides, the flotation recovery of fine dispersed gold, associated with sulfides and quarts remains at the level of 60–80% or 30–40% in some cases. Be exact, recovery of gold to copper and zinc concentrates ranges within 30−35%, the balance gold slips to pyrite concentrate and 10–15% of gold is lost in dump tailings.
Analysis of experimental data on gold concentration and experience of operating gold factories show that the main gold loss is due to its fine dispersion and dissemination in “mineral−carriers” and the lack of selective gold collecting agents, efficient in separation of gold-bearing sulfides from goldfree sulfides and capable to form selective goldcontaining mineral aggregates in the fine and ultrafine fractions.
UMETEQ's team was one of the first to develop and to propose a fundamentally new class of reagents to recover noble metals from rebellious ores, tailings and industrial waste.
