These folks are an hour and a half past their decision time so I'm assuming everything is O K. The following is the original:
I was invited to accompany a member of the IPM management team for a review of the private laboratory that is working on IPM's precious metals recovery procedures. We spent most of the day in the facility and I must say, it's quite impressive. The lab where the small scale work is done contains normal lab equipment like magnetic hot plate stirrers, overhead mixers, small reaction vessels, vent hoods etc. They also have a hydrogen reduction furnace and an A A machine. Outside are crushers, grinders, screeners, pulverisers etc.
In a large separate building, they have a beautifully equipped bulk processing facility capable of high temperatures and pressures, filter press, electro-chemical rectifiers and some equipment that I can't even venture a guess on. They have a large scrubber for air quality and some water pollution type control equipment also. They have the capability to run 7 each 1000 pound bulk tests at the same time. The whole works can be heated or chilled, filtered, plated in, stirred, etc. The floors and the equipment in the entire plant are very clean and well kept. There is also a plating facility in operation outside with about 60 small plating cells.
The present test work includes alkaline and acidic leaching and electro-chemistry (plating) type operations. The testing should require about 8 weeks and when finished, IPM's flow chart will include some or (most) of the following:
Leach: alkaline or acid
SEXW: solvent extraction - electro winning.
Lead acetate - Zinc metal precipitation
C I P: Carbon in pulp
R I P: Resin in pulp
Electrolytics of some sort
The final product is a metal powder (recovered metals). They are chemically analyzable for PMG's (precious metal groups.) At this stage these powders will be shipped to a refiner for final separation. A tentative agreement is in place with 2 separate refiners.
That's the equipment -- the people were even more impressive. The man that's doing most of the experimentation spent 2 hours explaining to me what was in the dirt that caused the failure of standard fire assays etc. He seemed to have a good grasp of the complexity of the mineralization and showed little doubt that he could solve the problems. There is no set schedule for going up on size of tests. He had a one pounder (heads) running and he had me run a 3 ounce acid leach. When he learns the parameters of the one pounders, he'll step the size up, etc. For those unfamiliar with chemical reactions, the operating conditions can change a lot when you up-size. Once he gets above 3 pounds the processing will be done with the equipment in the larger building. The reaction sizes will then be steadily increased, culminating with 1/2 ton bulk testing. This should yield saleable product and the final specifications for designing IPM's own facility.
That's about it gang, I may not have relayed it very well to you , but I am really enthused. There will probably not be any more data coming for awhile from this lab, I am not going to bother these folks with a bunch of ongoing questions. I believe there will be a communication from Mr. Furlong on the web-site on Thursday. It will preempt the executive summary on the home page and be his vision of the upcoming year.
How did my leach turn out?? Better than the reported values and that's all I can say. Best to all.
C L |
