Smelting and Refining Gold From Tailings

Smelting and refining gold ore tailings to determine how much gold is still locked up. By smelting the material down and performing a large assay the amount of gold left over in the coarse quartz ore can be determined.
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[@VendettaProspecting]

Excellent, once again coffee and mbmmllc on a Sunday morning 💨💨💨🥴☕️

[@alexwarner8048]

Heat the cone mould to over 250 degrees centigrade mate. The interaction of cold mould to hot pour creates thermal trap points all around the cone mould surface that will hold onto heavy/precious metals. It can throw off actual essay weights and results.

[@pdland4936]

I don't know nuthin' and I thought heating the cone might make some difference . Great clip .

[@Michael-rg7mx]

A cool bullet mold, makes wrinkled bullets. I heat it by filling with molten lead and placing over the furnace. I'm sure he could hang it on chains over the furnace.

[@TheBookDoctor]

19:30: That convection pattern is so pretty. Like, seriously, I'd enjoy watching a complete realtime video of that from the moment it's poured until the surface has frozen over. I think that would be both fascinating and mesmerizing.

[@sylentxtinction2097]

With all the energy involved in processing such a small amount from the tailings of your machine... it's both a testament to the efficiency of the turn key system, and the price to assay high purity gold. That level of retention is amazing for mechanical separation.

[@exploringabandonedmines]

Interesting but I am sure it costs more to recover the Gold than it is worth. Why don't you use froth flotation to concentrate the Gold before smelting it? The way the old timers did even 100 years ago.

[@watcherofwatchers]

Because he is experimenting.

[@intellectualiconoclasm3264]

You should be able to convert Borax just by cooking it at over 220°. I hope that's healpful!

[@etarheel1]

Bro I don’t know why I’m so fascinated by your Chanel but I am. Thank you for your videos! I really enjoy them!

[@ChrisRalph]

Try leaching them right in the supersack bag with thiosulfate and a plastic kiddie pool underneath.

[@gabrial3377]

Ah, Chris. Fun to see you here, because I have watched many many of your videos. Great work!!

[@gabrial3377]

Oh, btw, what is thiosulphate?

[@UtahGold]

Thanks Jason. My first few attempts at smelting yielded the pure iron buttons that would dissolve in water or dissolve overnight like you show. I never thought of re-smelting or cupelling because I thought it was pure iron the way it just completely dissolved in water. But in hindsight I should’ve tried what you’ve done. Thanks again

[@jeffcard3623]

Iron doesn't dissolve In water.

[@laralovesviolins6510]

From 19:20 to 19:56 - the natural kaleidoscope effect is mesmerizing!

[@azinfidel6461]

@mbmmllc, was curious as to whether you've seen shortages of other materials and supplies?

[@GSProspecting]

Great work fam. Keep the dream alive. Gold squad out!!!

[@snarky_user]

Cool, so this was basically a proof on the prior video. I suppose the next step will be to figure out how to put a ball mill inline with automatic feed process before they get the table. Would you get any benefit from putting a roaster after the ball mill to kill of the sulphides before they hit the table. Crusher - Hammer Mill - Ball Mill - Roaster - Slurry Mixer - Table ??

[@macoppy6571]

That sounds like procedural thinking 🤔

[@jonathancardy9941]

Have you ever tried using a heat exchanger to reduce the amount of gas/propane you use by heating the inbound air with your exhaust gas?

[@Red9GearHeads]

Your videos have been a huge help to me Jason. Thanks a million!

[@bobterry2952]

Hi ,thanks for the video, may I suggest heating you mold, it will help with the settling in the cone. And won't shock the dump. I always heat my molds before I do a dump.

[@jonpierce8342]

Melt a batch of borax, pour it in a cookie sheet, let it cool, and crush it. TADA! Anhydrous borax! Thats how my blacksmith buddy does it for his flux anyway...

[@closed2459]

Install a food grater above that hook a bunch of wires to it some with lights in them a jucer under nieth it an place all that on the rear deck of a dalorion then flux it

[@normynorm2945]

@@closed2459 Very good

[@curbyourshi1056]

Fairly sure his furnace is hot enough mate.

[@newtsleatherandmetalsmithy1827]

I also use this method to make anhydrous borax but its not as clean as commercially made

[@jamesproffitt9641]

If he does all that he might as well just drive the water off in the smell like he does

[@Drachenfang]

Always love your videos Jason. As an educator I am glad to be learning more about pyrochemistry and the recovery process.

[@krakhedd]

Do you keep your cupels? Curious at what point it becomes economical to process them into Fe, Cu, Pb, etc, maybe to sell at scrap prices?

[@damxgopak457]

Best go through my tailings better thanks Jason.

[@MegaSilverStacker]

Such great knowledge from you Jason!👍👊

[@bryzabone]

Ball mill is the way to go, I think you were right first time, best way to assay is with least loss and cost 👍🏻

[@xenaguy01]

13:10 Will you be sending that slag off to be assayed? That's really the only way to know if the matte collected all the metals.

[@davefrimml1518]

Hey Jason I'm curious if you warm up your cone mold before pouring and does that help keep the material molten and giving the more dense metals a better chance of dropping

[@TrevsOutbackandGoldAdventures]

Thanks again Jason for another fascinating experimental video.Just amazing to see what gold was locked up in the number 4 tailings,a large percentage of which would have been quartz.Henceforth you would have had to bring the smelt up to at least 1650 degrees celcius. I hope you keep bringing us out here more fascinating videos.

[@korpse6rinder]

You can cook your borax in a low oven to drive off the water content if you need anhydrous.

[@lordchagrin1378]

Now that's a lava lamp! Great video, thanks for explaining as you go.

[@StratRider]

hard to express how much I appreciate what you are doing and actually teaching here. I would also like you to add your ROI on these experiments and how that might translate to tonnage. It would appear that you likely spent at least $30 here (not counting time) to return $5 or less in gold. Again the effort is worth it for learning but for others Not on youtube - is it ever worth it?

[@cpebud]

I think it’s more of a test to see how much gold remains as a way of determining how successful his previous process was at extracting it, not for actually trying to get the gold from this. I could be wrong

[@madshephard2boots157]

Would like to know what is on both hands. Left hand palm by the thumb and the back of both hands?

[@kenalbertpinas2242]

Tailings here in the Philippines we use CIP or leaching process. 90% you'll recover the gold n silver.

[@allenhammer7923]

How am I to know what CIP is?

[@Michael-rg7mx]

I built an underground vault for a business. I used a 1200 sized concrete septic tank with no holes. I put a sleeve with holes in it then filled the tank with fist sized limestone. The wash water going in was so acidic that it would dissolve iron. After filtering through the rocks it was near pH 7.

[@ControversialChris-o2b]

Random question but would, running dampened material through the disc grinder, dry the material out through friction heating it?

[@DavidSmith-zr3nd]

Curious about your hard rock mine. How about an update? As always I enjoy the education.

[@Joaoburakovski-du3dy]

The cone molde, shouldnt be pre heated? Would haver more time to preciptade the Gold?

[@larrygerfen2801]

It would be nice to see a physical compare of from start of ore to final result. Also cost of processing.

[@ericprater4017]

I loooove mbmmllc! Great job! Keep em coming!

[@apleasantmisery]

Where do you get your cone molds from? I'm having no luck finding them anywhere or do you make all your molds? If so, any chance you can post your mold plans?

[@freedomoperator6502]

He clearly says he made it.

[@Slavicplayer251]

i was wondering if you have thought about setting up a leaching system to get the last of the gold from tailings more cost effectively?

[@waywardgeologist2520]

I just posted the same question. Most gold mines use it.

[@martingardener]

Best cooking show ever!

[@mylescooper7418]

I’m just starting to get into smelting after finding a good amount of very small flakes and flour gold from sluicing in the uk but its still got a very tiny amount of 100/200 mesh quarts dust, crystals and afew dots of black sand here and there.. I was just wondering how I find the right mix of flux, borax or whatever else I could use for that kind of high grade cons?.. Would be very much appreciated if you or someone could point me in the right direction 👍..

[@AlanWatts33]

Dan Hurd has some good videos on refining those kinds of things

[@intellectualiconoclasm3264]

Great knowledge, thank you.

[@rayeaglenz]

Enjoyed watching your video 👍😉

[@KD0CAC]

Always enjoy your videos , seems like experimenting . But it also seems like reinventing the wheel ? Most of this should be already known by smelting for the last , what 100 yrs. , or at least many decades ? Again very interesting to reinvent the wheel , but after experimenting - wouldn't referring to already know info be a good added part ? Thanks again

[@muyyek]

I'm only guessing, but I think they're a smaller operation, compared to the big gold mining outfits, so he's experimenting for techniques with higher recovery rates. For him, every 0.01g counts, whereas a small amount of loss is acceptable for mining operations that pull up kilos of gold at a time. A lot of the techniques he's using (especially at this scale) probably wouldn't be economical for a larger operation (for this video, I'm guessing -- with two burners going -- he went through maybe $7 worth of gas, plus let's say an extra $1 or so in borax, all to pull 0.9g of pure gold off the original 4kg of tailings. So that's $8-$9 (not even counting the cost of his time and effort) to pull maybe $50 of gold. I think also this may lead him to process the ore finer to begin with: if he's getting this much gold from what is supposed to be the waste product off his turnkey system, then perhaps there's a way to tweak the initial process to gain a higher yield from the very start and not throw away as much.

[@macoppy6571]

@@muyyek I agree in principle, but I think Jason may have his machine customers in mind before his own operation.

[@waywardgeologist2520]

How many kg of CN would you need to leach out the gold and silver?

[@kendallkahl8725]

You need to let the smelting pot drip until nothing comes out. The highest concentration of gold you let drip all over the place and stay in the bottom of your melting crucible. The molten material doesn't have enough convection current to left the gold off the bottom.

[@S13402]

How do we deal with an iron ore that has a good percentage of gold? Can you make a video about that?

[@chidambarathanu5131]

Can you please guide me to get silver/ gold and some precious metals from copper coated

[@cditzler6313]

18g to 1000kg is def worth milling I would think so if you add a ball mill after hammer then shaker table you should get it all mostly

[@bonitabromeliads]

So is it actually worth it to do all this work for a tiny bead of gold? Or were you jut doing it for demonstration purposes?

[@tippitytop2673]

Is it worth it to crush all the glass and pan it out just to see if there's more hiding in there

[@АнтониоИванов-ц7х]

My American brother, you did well, tried hard, worked hard, like,! have not tried a mixture of charcoal, ammonium nitrate and boric acid when melting metal, it's better this way...?😉

[@Slavicplayer251]

god that recipe sounds like fun if you add some sulfur

[@johnarchuleta9893]

Jason my man, really enjoy your informative videos.

[@josephcormier5974]

So you have to come up with a design that goes to a ball mill when you run your stock excellent video thank you two thumbs

[@andrewclarkehomeimprovement]

Really interesting process. One question though. With raw gold at $62/g and you recovered 0.1g. I know it's an experiment and/or demonstration but considering all the energy, materials and time used it doesn't feel cost effective. Or did I miss something?

[@talavs-jekabsriekstins578]

What are you doing with all that slag that is left over?

[@paulomeara7706]

Have you ever tried the way miners do in Australia, and dissolve the gold from tailings in a cyanide solution, then run the solution through carbon to extract the gold. (Or something like that. You'll have to google the exact process)? I'd love to see you experiment this on a small scale. 😀

[@brianhbinesh]

Lol very dangerous.

[@gossardihouse7275]

What's this pyramid mould called I can't find one ?

[@larryhaynes7298]

@mbmmllc do you sell dolly pots ( hand rock crushers an mallets to cruch with)????

[@Deepwoodsjoe]

Will rice help to reduce the moisture in the borax.

[@oromoctoecv6411]

should use the rigidifier for the lid. itll make it so it doesnt sag as much and will probably last twice as long

[@ProspectorTripp]

Good work Jason! Thanks 🙏 ✌️PT

[@ZE0XE0]

flotation cells are pretty cheap and easy to set up. Im curious how much more efficient it would be to process some of the tailings with a flotation cell to remove the sulfides before then cupelling.

[@allenhammer7923]

Do you have a referance info on just how to do it?

[@ZE0XE0]

@@allenhammer7923 that would depend greatly on the characteristics of the individual ore.

[@ZE0XE0]

@@allenhammer7923 the basics though are you get the correct pH of the water, possibly add some chemicals to allow the minerals to be separated to be more hydrophobic, have something at the bottom to agitate the fines, and then bubble air through the mixture and scrape off the scum that floats to the surface. You set up the chemistry so only the minerals you want to separate become hydrophobic so they can stick to the surface tension of the bubbles and float to the top.

[@csachevauxsansabri2612]

Don't you think that after firing, if you refined with acid, you would get a muche better result, and cheaper. Beside that you would also collect all other remaining metals, that would in term bring back some more money?

[@kencarbon2346]

Enjoyed watching your video

[@douglaspohl1827]

Thought you would of done the Cerro Gotto float?

[@lylestavast7652]

I came to watch the molten mix freeze; wasn't disappointed at all ;)

[@ethanburnett4164]

Cool molding!!

[@graemewight2975]

Aw, you missed the dissolved oxygen popping out on the wee mould, well u didnt, but we did. Can u put that up next time u shmelt pls. To me its a little bit of magic. 😀👍🏻 Hello from Scotland btw.

[@Name-ot3xw]

Looking forward to when you run out of smelting ideas and start directly extracting the ions from solution

[@chrismontano390]

My current problem is getting my ore to pour that fluid. How long did this smelting process take? And at what approximate temperature?

[@windyhillfoundry5940]

Always enjoy your work👍

[@osos.para.Normal_adventures]

What degrees does the gold smelt?

[@aumetalmental8403]

Spot on...👍✌️😎

[@charlestuozzo4747]

Does it pay off in fuel and time?

[@robertjames2957]

Do you yield larger amounts or is it always so little

[@thomasfrye8996]

Curious what you do with the slag after?

[@samkostos4520]

Can't you use acid and do this faster and more collection. Maybe it's not cost effective thou with such large quantities.

[@davekimbler2308]

Is it worth doing it ? What’s the cost per gram to recover the gold ?

[@bartcubbins3528]

Can you recover the bismuth the same way as with lead ?

[@Makobadger]

Could i use egg shell ash as a substetute for bone ash

[@orsonzedd]

yo wht do you do with your slag? It's so shiny and pretty

[@Hartcore11]

I think you could have added potassium nitrate as an oxydizer and still used lead as a collector metal. My thoughts are no matte is good. Slag and Prill baby. Slag and Prill.

[@michaelpass2176]

Is it worth going back to Brent underwood ghost town?

[@drevil2783]

Very cool patterns that molten slag makes

[@curlywolfone]

You’re going to cupel a bead that’s already the size of a period!?! Good luck with that.

[@bobcansee]

Love what your doing!!

[@BeatzAintfreeMobile]

Is all of that really worth that small amount of gold?

[@SuperMortiki]

Looks like your hands were cut in multiple places, or is that red marker? 😳

[@nathandean1687]

ok why arent u using thermal electric generators to generate dc to charge batteries.

[@Jerote77]

Try this: Take a sample from the sacs. (Representative) 1000 g sample 1000 g Na2CO3 700 g borax 150 g litharge 10 g charcoal Smelt it and let cool it down (at room temperature) without water. Take de lead at the bottom and coppel it. You dont need to smelt 5 kg if the sample is Representative. You should put the lead when the copel is at 950°C , (not before). We usually melt with diesel furnaces. you would lose less temperature and it is safer. Good job Thank you Jason

[@6Diego1Diego9]

what part of town are you from?

[@theshishow4942]

If you need some anhydrous borax let me know. I can still get it here in Idaho.

[@bobbygibson4661]

Yo Jason you know anything about gold oxide I am Bobby Gibson I've been watching you and you seem like you know what you're talking about help me out dude I found a vein of this stuff that looks like pure rust but it's got it's real soft is this what I'm looking for

[@risaias]

Try pouring off some borax and reheating before you go for the cone mold.

[@StirlingLighthouse]

Thanks Jason 👍 Interesting tests. And a anhydrous borax shortage? What weird times. Iodine is also something hard to find now. Makes one wonder what the heck is going on. Smh

[@risaias]

Huge trade deficits, raising import prices. Containers come in full from China, leave empty to China. Should be good for commodities in the short term. Specially gold and silver.

[@Alondro77]

Where do you get those pyramid molds? Those look to be the best for this sort of work.

[@badboybubby7794]

He said he made it

[@Alondro77]

@@badboybubby7794 I hope he posts a video of how to make one, in that case! You can't beat a graphite mold with a hammer! ...Well, you CAN... but then you end up with a pile of rubble.

[@user-lb8do4ew6k]

@@Alondro77 It's a pretty straightforward welding project. 4 equilateral triangles welded together with stand made of angle iron. Looks to be 1/4" steel plate, 8" triangles... bzzzzt bzzzzzzt tap tap tap & bob's your uncle..

[@dapduki]

The energy used to get that amount of gold just doesn't seem worth it. How is this profitable?

[@Leffe192]

It is not. He is selling the equipment used to get the gold from the original ore. This, i guess is th showcase the efficiency of his product, and also the efficiency of the regrinding of the tailings he talked about. Doing it this way as a three step process is probably not worth it, but to make it as a test to tweak the original process to capture most gold in the first step, or at least get the confidence that he is catutring enough, that is probabl worth the effort.

[@dapduki]

@@Leffe192 sorry, I have no clue what you're saying. Try typing in English because you're using words that simply do not exist. If you're going to respond at least make an effort to look like you have some sort of education. Writing the garbage you write is just pointless since your lack of the ability to spell is borderline disturbing.

[@OneOfDisease]

The mat probably turned to powder because it didn't really anneal during the cool down, so it turns brittle.

[@tzkelley]

How much do you think it cost you to recover that $6 of gold?

[@diggindiggenit6540]

Coolest video I have seen this week wtg