That is assuming that bacterial leach and cyanide leach will get at the ore. It won't recover platinum it it's there. It is my understanding that the materials are tied up in a high iron silicate if they are there at all. Well examples of iron silicates are Olivine (fayalite), Staurolite, Almandite, Tephroite, Hedenbergite, Hypersthene, Anthophyllite, Aegerine, Actinolite(could make sparkplugs). Micas were always thought to tie up gold in their sheet lattices in gold deposits. Wouldn't want to grind that stuff. But Garnierite can be high enough in nickel to be used as a silicate ore. Soooo....maybe gold is in their substituting for some iron somehow.. as in (Ni-Au)6 Si4O10(OH)8. Now that WOULD be nice. Do you suppose those nice people with the STM's saw those buggers in the silicate lattice and didn't tell us? I would look at hemimorphite first. Then Tephropite, olivine and chlorite.
Olivine is pretty tuff stuff. It lasts 150 miles in a glacial train in
Russia. Your bacteria better have good teeth. And if you want to ionize silica they had better be super hydrofluoric bugs.
Cominco found a coupla million tons of 17% zinc in hemimorphite which is a zinc silicate (also) found in Franklin, New Jersey. The head of Cominco at the time had looked at molten metal salts in the 60's to tackle various ores so he wan't hidebound. Totally uneconomic. This stuff if formational and runs for miles in the Grenville. So if Bill's bugs can get it out (and it is hydrated), COME On DOWN!
There is one case where metals silicates are brought down by gas diffusion from their silicate bond. It is an interesting process and will work on 5% ores. Not used in this country.
-------------------------------------------------
echarter@vianet.on.ca |
