Tag Archives: gold mining

IXOS™ nanotechnology gold-attracting bead for the gold mining industry

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The nanotechnology-enabled IXOS™ bead promises to increase gold mining profits by $100/oz. according to a July 7, 2016 6th Wave Innovations news release (received by email and available on Business Wire),

-6th Wave Innovations Corp. has announced the launch of its game-changing IXOS™ nanotechnology bead for the gold mining industry. The Company estimates that its molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) ion exchange resin can increase gold mining
loading/unloading cycles), and high capacity (~30g/kg) and selectivity for gold (>95%). Moreover, the capacity and selectivity does not degrade with successive cycles. The unloading (“elution”) process is simple, straightforward and inexpensive when compared to activated carbon. The beads require no activation step for re-use. The resin is supplied ready-to-use, with a range of particle sizes available to accommodate heap leach and resin-in-leach/pulp circuits.

Each patent-pending IXOS bead is imprinted at the molecular level to attract gold and ignore the other elements leached off in mining operations. Unlike conventional ion exchange resins, the IXOS resin has a long life (>50 loading/unloading cycles), and high capacity (~30g/kg) and selectivity for gold (>95%). Moreover, the capacity and selectivity does not degrade with successive cycles. The unloading (“elution”) process is simple, straightforward and inexpensive when compared to activated carbon. The beads require no activation step for re-use. The resin is supplied ready-to-use, with a range of particle sizes available to accommodate heap leach and resin-in-leach/pulp circuits.

“6th Wave’s resin technology has great potential,” said Susan Ritz, Principal Process Engineer and President of Jack Rabbit Consulting, a prominent gold mining engineering firm. “It works well under very challenging conditions and appears to be more highly selective for gold than carbon. I can see it replacing carbon as the adsorbent of choice.”

IXOS has consistently and thoroughly outperformed activated carbon and conventional ion-exchange resins in laboratory and field trials conducted over the past three years. These trials were done in partnership with some of the world’s largest gold mining companies under a wide variety of conditions, including high grade, low grade, and refractory (“preg-robbing”) ores. In the trials, IXOS also demonstrated a variety of advantages to activated carbon, including capacity, selectivity, elution time and temperature, adsorption efficiency, durability, and re-use. These advantages directly translate to lower costs and more gold recovered.

Use of IXOS also requires fewer chemicals, reduces waste, has no toxic emissions, and uses less power — making it a “greener” technology.

Dr. Jonathan Gluckman, Chairman and CEO of 6th Wave, noted that, “Working with our mining partners has allowed us to field-test the IXOS beads in harsh conditions that are impossible to synthesize. We have clearly demonstrated that the beads work consistently and predictably, and display all of the positive attributes we have seen in the lab. We are confident that IXOS will substantially increase our customers’ profitability.”

I wish there was a little more technical information about the technology and the testing but have not been able to find any additional details or any technical publications on the company website.

It can be said that there is great interesting in better recovery methods in the mining industry and 6th Wave Innovations has an interesting portfolio of products ranging from IXOS to Explosives Detection Products (in their Homeland Security category) and to Biogene Amine Detection (in their Medical Diagnostics category).

Note: This post is not an endorsement of the product or the company.

*ETA July 8, 2016 at 1215 hours: It belatedly occurred to me that I should add this from the news release,

Safe Harbor Language: This news release includes “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are based upon the current beliefs and expectations of 6th Wave’s management and are subject to significant risks and uncertainties. If underlying assumptions prove inaccurate or risks or uncertainties materialize, actual results may differ materially from those set forth in the forward-looking statements. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Poopy gold, silver, platinum, and more

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In the future, gold rushes could occur in sewage plants. Precious metals have been found in large quantity by researchers investigating waste and the passage of nanoparticles (gold, silver, platinum, etc.) into our water. From a Jan. 29, 2015 news article by Adele Peters for Fast Company (Note: Links have been removed),

One unlikely potential source of gold, silver, platinum, and other metals: Sewage sludge. A new study estimates that in a city of a million people, $13 million of metals could be collecting in sewage every year, or $280 per ton of sludge. There’s gold (and silver, copper, and platinum) in them thar poop.

…

Funded in part by a grant for “nano-prospecting,” the researchers looked at a huge sample of sewage from cities across the U.S., and then studied several specific waste treatment plants. “Initially we thought gold was at just one or two hotspots, but we find it even in smaller wastewater treatment plants,” says Paul Westerhoff, an engineering professor at Arizona State University, who led the new study.

Some of the metals likely come from a variety of sources—we may ingest tiny particles of silver, for example, when we eat with silverware or when we drink water from pipes that have silver alloys. Medical diagnostic tools often use gold or silver. …

The metallic particles Peters is describing are nanoparticles some of which are naturally occurring  as she notes but, increasingly, we are dealing with engineered nanoparticles making their way into the environment.

Engineered or naturally occurring, a shocking quantity of these metallic nanoparticles can be found in our sewage. For example, a waste treatment centre in Japan recorded 1,890 grammes of gold per tonne of ash from incinerated sludge as compared to the 20 – 40 grammes of gold per tonne of ore recovered from one of the world’s top producing gold mines (Miho Yoshikawa’s Jan. 30, 2009 article for Reuters).

While finding it is one thing, extracting it is going to be something else as Paul Westerhoff notes in Peters’ article. For the curious, here’s a link to and a citation for the research paper,

Characterization, Recovery Opportunities, and Valuation of Metals in Municipal Sludges from U.S. Wastewater Treatment Plants Nationwide by Paul Westerhoff, Sungyun Lee, Yu Yang, Gwyneth W. Gordon, Kiril Hristovski, Rolf U. Halden, and Pierre Herckes. Environ. Sci. Technol., Article ASAP DOI: 10.1021/es505329q Publication Date (Web): January 12, 2015

Copyright © 2015 American Chemical Society

This paper is behind a paywall.

On a completely other topic, this is the first time I’ve noticed this type of note prepended to an abstract,

 Note

This article published January 26, 2015 with errors throughout the text. The corrected version published January 27, 2015.

Getting back to the topic at hand, I checked into nano-prospecting and found this Sept. 19, 2013 Arizona State University news release describing the project launch,

Growing use of nanomaterials in manufactured products is heightening concerns about their potential environmental impact – particularly in water resources.

Tiny amounts of materials such as silver, titanium, silica and platinum are being used in fabrics, clothing, shampoos, toothpastes, tennis racquets and even food products to provide antibacterial protection, self-cleaning capability, food texture and other benefits.

Nanomaterials are also put into industrial polishing agents and catalysts, and are released into the environment when used.

As more of these products are used and disposed of, increasing amounts of the nanomaterials are accumulating in soils, waterways and water-systems facilities. That’s prompting efforts to devise more effective ways of monitoring the movement of the materials and assessing their potential threat to environmental safety and human health.

Three Arizona State University faculty members will lead a research project to help improve methods of gathering accurate information about the fate of the materials and predicting when, where and how they may pose a hazard.

Their “nanoprospecting” endeavor is supported by a recently awarded $300,000 grant from the National Science Foundation.

You can find out more about Paul Westerhoff and his work here.