Hey Jeff!!! I was just asking about adding salt to the roasting. I just read it on your site. And thought I would do some more searching. Going to be roasting some we got out of schist. Have more to crush. Hope to find some shiny
I agree 100 percent! Damn good info that miners need to know! I've been dealing with sulphide for a long time and this is the best info ever!!! Thank you!👍
Speaking from experience, be careful and stay well away from any fumes. One whiff when the wind shifted almost killed me on the spot a few years ago. I had to get an expensive blood test and my heart kept trying to stop in my sleep.......... for months. I got arsenic poisoning.
That is pretty impressive. What was the weight of sulfides that you started with? It did not look like that much. Just to glance at the beginning of the video, I'd guess around 150 grams (more or less), which is not very much. Those are very rich sulfides!
so what degrees approximately does the sulfites have to become to burn off and release the gold? I thought the fumes coming off of the sulfides would be toxic. I've been told it has to be up to 800 Degrees for many hours, are they referring to a full rock or crushed material like you used? I'm glad to see that it doesn't take hours for a small amount. thanks for demonstrating, I really appreciate it.
You seem to always have something important to share, and this is just another great example. Much of my prospecting is in Oregon, so dealing with sulfides plays a big part of my hobby. Your point was dramatically displayed. Thanks for this posting.
I was told there is a massive gold sulfide deposit on the east side of the rogue by indian marry and taylor creek. And that roasting is needed; roast until you smell sulfur and then its ready. Would like to try that out.
@@StevenHanover, as soon as you begin roasting sulfide ore, you can smell sulfur and exposure to atmospheric oxygen is necessary throughout the entire roasting process. So be sure to stir the sand and roast it a little longer than you think is necessary and be sure you're doing it outside! Also, save your black sand because at some point you are going to want to process it, again. It's very frustrating to find that your gold is bonded to sulfides because it take so much extra time and effort to process it, but that's what winters are for. I still have all my black sand and although it contains very little gold at this point, I find it very useful to use as a barrier for my radioactive samples from Moab, Utah. Yes, Oregon is loaded with sulfides, not just bound to gold. I'm patiently waiting for the dredging laws to change.
Is this something that would work on the hematite/ magnatite sands collected from stream sluicing? Or is this more of a hard rock/ ore crushing kinda thing. I don't honestly see any pyrite in these sands
Hello, after roasting. What was released was little gold but a lot of silver colored metals.. what does this indicate please. Is it possible it’s platinum ?
Been watching a lot of your videos (again) and I was thinking there might be another way to go about this. I typically do chemical refining so that's where my brain naturally goes to. I was thinking that if the sulfides were ground VERY fine and then soaked in a hot lye solution and left to sit that might accomplish the same thing. Then it'd just be a matter of a quick wash, dry and smelt. Would be interesting to see if this has any effects. I'd do it myself but I don't have any gold bearing sulfides I could test with. :)
hi Janson thank you bcp for very interesting video I would like to know in a little lightning the pyrite directly in the oven since I have not seen the rest of your video usually you make a full video thank you good luck
@@mbmmllc Are you kidding me? Thats like asking a fat kid if he wants candy lol! I still play with the flakes you sent me from time to time trying to hone my panning skills, Came in a little handy after the last batch of IC's I incinerated. Id love to roast some sulfides!
Very helpful video as always, really enjoy this site. A suggestion for a future video, how do you separate copper, solder and aluminium after going through the shaker table? That would be very interesting.
Old timer told me they would soak concentrates in salt water 3 days boil it off in cast iron pan on wood stove and quench in cold water sizzling hot. He.said he got 1-3 grams from. 5g bucket
thanks for the great video but i have so many questions.. i roasted some sulphide ore yesterday and did get some gold and a lot of silver on the miller table. should we be adding borax or carbon or anything to accellerate the change from sulphide to oxide? or just roast straight from the crusher?. what do you use to recover silver? thanks.
thanks for that. if you can catch, those few blue fumes, you are global warming aware. Thats what i wanted to see! that's what im talking about! in a potato crucible
Great work Jason but at the beginning of the video you showed the plastic container with some material and it looks very fine very tiny gravel or crushed rock, then panning out a small sample I see no gold in the pan. Then after roasting you show the pan and visible gold my question is why the gold looks now even bigger than the fine grains of material when rosting will just release the even smaller specs of gold that should be even smaller than the original marerial I'm assuming it should not even be visable at all since this process is just roasting there is to binding substrate for the reaction to take place and bind tiny pieces of gold with adjacent gold specs. I can especulate from the original sample you did not get that much visible gold unless you roasted more material and not just the small container presented and the beginning of the video so you probably roasted more material but question and confusion is that you have a good amount of good size visible gold that some looks larger than the original sample and the other question is if grinding the material to very fine dust size material would you get the same results since the idea is to release the gold from sulfides? You have great videos and redacted well but I will definitely appreciate a responce because I'm dealing with very tiny microscopic gold a real pain because is not visible unless there is a good amount to see it on the pan and its very frustrating I'm glad I'm not doing as my only source of income is just a hobby were I'm happy learning the very difficult process. Best regards
Interesting video. In my opinion the sulfides were not being roasted as no flame touched the sulfides. I'd consider you were heating the sulfides in the presence of air. So are you sure heating the sulfides released the gold or was the gold produced as a result of heating the sulfides?
Eh... What? In metallurgy, roasting is a process of heating of sulfide ore to a high temperature in presence of air, exactly what was said and done in the video, sooo... what is your point? And what do you mean by producing, not releasing? During roasting, the sulfide is converted to an oxide, and sulfur is released as sulfur dioxide, wikipedia has on article about roasting, I suggest you read that for reference, but you might want to start by refreshing your basic chemistry a bit before that.
@@Timppa99 Thanks for replying but my point can be summed up by asking this one question - what makes the understanding you have concerning the observations you have made, true? Btw other definition of roasting = the action of cooking something in an oven or over an open fire.
The sulfides were converted to oxides and the gold was released when the sulfides converted to oxides. This was an unusual result as so much gold was released and visible by panning
Are there any other methods of raising the temperate aside from using a kiln. I don't have one and want to roast my concentrates I have processed over the years.
really cool video, my questions is how does the physics of gold change so that it doesnt weigh down in a pan before roasting but is there afterwards? thanks
Great questions, and not sure about the answer. My guess would be the gold particles are so small compared to the size of the sulfide crystal they are encapsulated in the gold doesn't increase the density of the piece that much. Not sure thought, anyone else have any other thoughts?
The gold is suspended by the sulfide crystals so under the heat the gold gets hot so the crystals are broken. If you notice in the pan that the gold was mostly in one spot of the pan, thus the heavies came out of the gold pan in one glob. Originally They weren’t noticeable due to the sulfide attached to the gold.
Thanks for another great video. That's the first video Ive seen showing how dramatically roasting of sulfides can unlock gold present in them. Those are also some very high grade sulfide cons! Great work on these videos!
Hi Jason. Great video! Question for you. You used ore to do this with. I am doing mechanical placer mining and I get lot's and lot's of pyrite in my cons but it is pyrite flake and some cubes all mixed in my cons. I usually toss it all out as I do my clean outs from my trommel/sluice boxes. Could there be gold locked up in those pyrite flakes and cubes that I usually toss out with all the lighter material in my cons? I'm usually left with just black sands of magnetite, hematite, and gold before doing the final separation of gold from black sands. But If there's gold in the pyrite that are in the placer gravels then I will start keeping them. Another question for you. I also have a hard rock mine with chalcopyrite. Lot's of it. It assays between 5%-9% copper. Is there also gold locked up in the chalcopyrite? In the assays it doesn't show high values of gold but maybe they aren't testing specifically for gold locked up in the chalcopyrite? Thank you
Yes and yes. aqua regia, sodium metabisulfite, and plant fertilizer are your friends. Manganese is precursor to copper, and gold with get absorbed by iron and copper which needs chemistry or torch to separate....
You would need to assay the pyrite in your placer cons for gold content to know for sure and then find a place to sell them if they did have gold. The calco/hardrock claim should show gold if present if they are assaying for gold
Another great video! One question: I typically see the addition of silica sand, and sometimes flour to the roast. Are there occasions where this is necessary? I didn’t hear you mention adding anything to your sulfides.
I have used silica sand in the past, but didn't for this round. The fine silica sand helps the sulfides to not stick to the pan when roasting. Not sure about flour though...
mbmmllc gotcha, thanks for the update. Oh yeah, I think the flour would be used later in the flux as a reducer. Flour would be counterproductive during the oxidizing roast, lol
Hello, Sir. May I ask a question? I would like to extract gold from pyrite. And I would like to mix potassium nitrate and boric powder together and I heat or melt it in electric furnace. this process is possible Sir
Will mercury amalgamate with the gold from sulfides? My eyes are bad for panning. I get down best I can then put in a steel ball mill with mercury, then in nitric. To remove the mercury and clean the gold
So it's my understanding that when you roast pyrite, oxygen bonds with the sulfur, leaving behind iron and making sulfur dioxide. Would you say that the amount of sulfur dioxide released is substantial enough to be a health concern? I also wonder if it'd be possible to collect that sulfur dioxide to make sulfuric acid.
How hot so you need to get the pan? probably can't do it on an oven or a portable electric "burner" outside.... In a kiln? or would the fumes attack the heating element?
hay Janson I have a lot of pyrite and I find how to recover the gold I have tests with laquawaregia nitric acid more hydro angry I can not precipitate gold they are the solution please thank you
I have so many 5 gallon buckets full of rocks/minerals, sand and some are plainly rich sulfide ore from various areas around WA state. I see you are in the Mt. Baker area, so I am feeling possibly lucky in the near future. :D
Did you add anything to the pyrite like salt of no? I have seen it said to use table salt when roasting! J don't have clue as to why but. Hey I am just learning. I have a bunch of schist that my son and k are going to crush down to pan out. Looks like we will be doing some roasting!!!
@@mbmmllc Was that a wood or gas fire? Or are you also connecting a blowdryer to that metal pipe going into the furnace to heat it up? Is it possible to set something up like this when out camping with simple rocks and firewood?
@@mbmmllc Cool, thanks for the reply... I watched more of your videos, you add the silicone dioxide so the cons don't stick to the cast iron pan. Love the work, thanks for sharing!
thermite, iron oxide, silicon oxide, kno3, as mix, to oxidize everything, and/or water mix the so2, to have all stuff become sulPhates, water soluble, electro-processable
Curious to know if this would work on PGM in sulfides? Going to roast some and pan but it appears very, very fine. If you don't mind sharing , I have some knowledge and understanding. Thanks in advance
@@mbmmllc wow nice haul. Any tips on collecting sulphides without a shaker table or a flotation tank? Ive got a heap of sulphide heavy cons i want to test but havent found a convenient way to separate yet
Hi Jason I think you need to think of another way to release the gold from the sulfide and not heat. It looks to me that by heating the gold sulfides you have released the gold but the the smaller particles of gold have oxidized in the process. Hence the red colour.
