Sperry filter press

[sdf527]

I'm looking at a property outside of Reno and there is a Sperry filter press left abandoned on it. The plates are still banded and on a pallet. There are sacks of soil samples stored on pallets nearby. A renter thinks the owners intended to run the soil for gold and silver, but never got set up and left the whole mess behind. Can anyone tell me how a filter press is used for gold recovery?

[nvchris]

In a heap leach gold mine a part of the process uses carbon often times coconut shell broken into say quarter inch chunks. These chunks are pumped with water into large tanks called a "carbon column" pregnant solution(gold in cyanide solution) is passed through the carbon and the gold is "trapped" on the carbon. Now remember the chunks of carbon? Well the once the preg solution is passed through the carbon it's known as "barren" and pumped back to the leach pad to continue the process. If there is any carbon in the barren then it gets trapped on the leach pad and hold's any gold. Thats a bad thing. So a filter press is used to remove the fine carbon from the process this is done before loading the carbon into the columns.

Thats just one application there are thousands.

What makes a press handy is it can be easily cleaned and scaled to fit any process volume.

[GlennM]

I read this and even tried to draw it on paper... my daughter looks like Van Gough compared to this... I'm confuzzed.

[nvchris]

Imagine a bag of Kingsford charcoal briquettes. If you dumped the bag onto a screen over a bucket of water you'd get mostly whole briquettes, then the fines and dust would pass through the screen and into the water.

Clean dust free carbon is needed for the process.

So now that you have that image in mind. The carbon that is loaded into the carbon columns must be free of the fine particles and not pass through the system. Otherwise any gold they hold would be lost.

The method to clean the carbon is called attrition, basically it a process to wash the carbon free of all the fines. The wash water is whats passed through the filter press to collect all the fine carbon. Filter membranes are placed between the many plates and the unit is "pressed" together. Really it's just like any other liquid filter ........ trap whatever particles are passed through it.

If you want to learn more google "adsorption desorption recovery" or ADR process for the recovery of gold. Then look for picture of the process circuit.

Just a few products that are filtered (on a small scale) with a press are Beer, wine, juice, cooking oil, one of the best filter mediums is diatomaceous earth If you drink beer and its clear it was filtered through a press with diatomaceous earth.