My idea for a new method of seperating gold from dirt.

Wes54321

Tenderfoot
Aug 17, 2013
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First let me state that I have no experience gold mining and I'm not a professional engineer. That being said, I think I understand the very basics of each. My idea is for a machine that could more efficiently extract gold from dirt without the need for water and pumps. I got the idea from how some people mine diamonds. From what I've read, the diamond bearing ore travels down a conveyor belt and the ore is blasted with X-rays. Since diamonds fluoresce when exposed to X-rays, photoelectric sensors precisely can spot the diamonds and blast them with a jet of air down a separate path. My theory is that you could feed the dry gold bearing pay dirt into a machine and with gentle vibration the pay dirt would pass through a magnetic induction coil (induction heating gold is common). This coil would cause any metals in the dirt to heat up at least 10 or 20 degrees. Now after the dirt passes through the coils it would then slide down a large slotted tray with many strategically placed infrared thermal sensors. These sensors would look for anything that's above ambient temperature and kick them down a separate path ending up in a bucket. Now infrared sensors can detect as little as a tenth of a degree difference. So, to the sensor, spotting little specks of warm gold would be as easy as spotting fireflies on a moonless night. I feel like this would allow you to isolate and get every last bit of gold out of a yard of dirt. Also, wouldn't it allow you to mine in desert areas where water is unavailable? I'm sure you would save money on gas for the water pumps too. Without miners moss you wouldn't have to stop to do clean ups. You just empty out your bucket of gold. So how does my idea sound? Any engineers out there have any thoughts? Do I just have no idea what I'm talking about? This is just a theory from an outsider so don't judge too harshly :) I feel like there has got to be a better way to separate gold from dirt. There is just too many things that go wrong with sluicing. You set it at the wrong angle you lose gold, too much water not enough water you lose gold, you wait too long to clean your carpets....you lose gold. There must be a more fool proof way to do it. Well, thanks for reading!
 

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DizzyDigger

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Dec 9, 2012
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Hi Wes, and first off....WELCOME to T-Net! :hello:

Your concept is an interesting one. Would you mind if I played
"Devil's Advocate" and pointed out a couple of hindrances to
making it all work as described?

Along with the gold in that aggregate blend are many other metals,
especially iron. The black sand will heat up at nearly the same speed
as the gold, or even faster, and this would be problematic for the
sensors to differentiate one metal from another.

If I understand correctly, we wouldn't need to bring water along to
run a recirculating sluice or other water-fed system, but we would
need to bring in a large enough generator to power the induction
coil and other sensitive equipment. That generator would need to be
running very clean power for those sensitive sensors, so if it's a regular,
off-the-shelf generator you can also add in at least one 30A power filter
(about $450). Bigger the induction coil, the more juice it'll take to operate
it.

Biggest hurdle I can see though is the black sand and gold heating up
together. Much of that gold is fine to micro stuff (-50 to -200 mesh),
and I just can't quite picture a mechanical device that is going to reach in
and remove that micro-fine stuff from the black sand and gold mix.

Once those hurdles are overcome it might be something worth a try
on a very small scale. Know anyone with a lab you can use to develop
a prototype?

You're thinking though, and that's where great ideas get started! :icon_thumleft:
 

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Terry Soloman

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Sounds very expensive. A drywasher and a gold pan is still the way to go in my opinion.. :occasion14:
 

golden ray

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To save time on cleaning out your moss matting ( and the worry of over loading it )
Spend the money & buy a few more mats. When you think your mats can't handle
any more material, roll it up, place in a bucket, install another one.
Take them all home to clean. Saves lugging water too. Works for me !!!
 

goldenIrishman

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Welcome Wes,

I agree with Dizzy that it's an interesting idea but highly problematic for field work. Instead of going out in a pickup, you'd need an 18 wheeler to haul the equipment. Now for a static plant setup it could work if (and it's a BIG if) you could afford to run it and still make a profit. I just can't see that happening unless you're onto some really REALLY good diggings. There are all kinds of high costs that go with something like this that the normal person seems to over look in the final calculation of profits. If you can't turn a profit on it then you don't do it unless it's only on a recreational scale.
 

KevinInColorado

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I suggest you try building a small demonstration unit to test the idea. The process of building and testing will be fun. Also if you get it working I bet there's a market for a workbench sized unit among the weekend mining community...us guys will buy almost anything that catches gold...and some of us like new toys to play with ;)
 

Fullpan

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May 6, 2012
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Hi Wes - welcome to the forum. A variation of your idea would be to pass a thin line of dry dirt under a series of Gold Bug 2 type coils which would activate the "puffers" of air for separation. Lighter weight, less power, and proven technology. I'm sure it would require a lot of R & D. Regardless, the videos of
re-circulating muddy water in desert settings brings out the "eww" response in me. There's gotta be a better way.
 

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Wes54321

Tenderfoot
Aug 17, 2013
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2
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Hi Wes, and first off....WELCOME to T-Net! :hello:

Your concept is an interesting one. Would you mind if I played
"Devil's Advocate" and pointed out a couple of hindrances to
making it all work as described?

Along with the gold in that aggregate blend are many other metals,
especially iron. The black sand will heat up at nearly the same speed
as the gold, or even faster, and this would be problematic for the
sensors to differentiate one metal from another.

If I understand correctly, we wouldn't need to bring water along to
run a recirculating sluice or other water-fed system, but we would
need to bring in a large enough generator to power the induction
coil and other sensitive equipment. That generator would need to be
running very clean power for those sensitive sensors, so if it's a regular,
off-the-shelf generator you can also add in at least one 30A power filter
(about $450). Bigger the induction coil, the more juice it'll take to operate
it.

Biggest hurdle I can see though is the black sand and gold heating up
together. Much of that gold is fine to micro stuff (-50 to -200 mesh),
and I just can't quite picture a mechanical device that is going to reach in
and remove that micro-fine stuff from the black sand and gold mix.

Once those hurdles are overcome it might be something worth a try
on a very small scale. Know anyone with a lab you can use to develop
a prototype?

You're thinking though, and that's where great ideas get started! :icon_thumleft:


Thanks for the warm welcome and the thoughts Mike!

Couldn't this fine iron sand be removed with some large neodymium magnets before it gets to the coils?

As for the power, I was thinking some solar cells with concentrating mirrors might be nice since this would most likely be a desert set up. Sure they're costly up front, but once they're payed for, the rest is all profit. I don't really see this thing being for the "one man on a weekend" miner. This would be more for the medium size multi-person operation. A pan or small sluice is more than good enough for one person. When you have a million dollar operation though an extra 5 or 10 percent is a lot of money. Don't a lot of the bigger guys stay out of the desert because there's no water? Is there such thing as a large dry sluicing operation? If there aren't any big desert guys, then doesn't that mean there must be plenty of fertile virgin ground out there?

The closest thing I have to a lab is a friend with a fresh phd in physics.

Thanks again!
 

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Wes54321

Tenderfoot
Aug 17, 2013
8
2
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
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Wes54321

Tenderfoot
Aug 17, 2013
8
2
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
Hi Wes - welcome to the forum. A variation of your idea would be to pass a thin line of dry dirt under a series of Gold Bug 2 type coils which would activate the "puffers" of air for separation. Lighter weight, less power, and proven technology. I'm sure it would require a lot of R & D. Regardless, the videos of
re-circulating muddy water in desert settings brings out the "eww" response in me. There's gotta be a better way.

The problem I see with using a metal detector is that its incredibly imprecise when in this situation you need ultra precision. It's great for finding a ring in the sand but you need to find a grain of sand in the sand. Thanks for the input!
 

A_Sly1_U

Jr. Member
Jun 2, 2013
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I find your idea interesting, and it could probably be made to work for more coarse gold. A lot of commercial grade wash plants already use metal detectors to check the over size material that doesn't go through the jigs. Perhaps your idea could be adapted there. As for having the sensitivity detect and sort the very fine particles of gold from the rest of the dirt....I'm doubtful.
 

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Wes54321

Tenderfoot
Aug 17, 2013
8
2
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
I find your idea interesting, and it could probably be made to work for more coarse gold. A lot of commercial grade wash plants already use metal detectors to check the over size material that doesn't go through the jigs. Perhaps your idea could be adapted there. As for having the sensitivity detect and sort the very fine particles of gold from the rest of the dirt....I'm doubtful.

What if the machine was built to classify the pay dirt into lets say 2 sizes.... Regular and fine. So, there would be 2 sections of the machine, each tuned and made to target and separate gold of a certain size. The induction coils in the fine gold section might be set to heat the smaller particles of gold to a higher temp so they would be more visible to the thermal cameras and because the finer particles would cool off quicker. Maybe in the fine gold section, before the coils, there could even be a spinning vertical drum to amp up the centrifugal force so that you could air blast the lighter sand out of the machine. I'm just brainstorming out loud here. My gut tells me that there's a way to configure this hypothetical machine to extract the fine gold dust in addition to the larger bits. It would just take a modified approach.

What I'd like to know is what's the limit to how small of a gold particle that a normal sluice box can catch?

Thanks for the comments!
 

A_Sly1_U

Jr. Member
Jun 2, 2013
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I regularly find gold in my sluice that will pass through a 100 mesh screen. That's small enough I can hardly see it in the pan.
 

DizzyDigger

Gold Member
Dec 9, 2012
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Concrete, WA
Detector(s) used
Nokta FoRs Gold, a Gold Cube, 2 Keene Sluices and Lord only knows how many pans....not to mention a load of other gear my wife still doesn't know about!
Primary Interest:
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What I'd like to know is what's the limit to how small of a gold particle that a normal sluice box can catch?
Thanks for the comments!

So small you can't see it without a magnified loupe, or in prospecting terms it's
about 200 mesh. There may be even smaller gold down to <300 mesh, as well,
it's just finding it in the black sand that is the challenge.
 

KevinInColorado

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My normal sluice does well down thru 200 mesh gold or so. That's about 100 micrometer sized!
 

jcazgoldchaser

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May 8, 2012
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It would be cool to see the induction heating work. I'm skeptical both based on actual heat / particle size and detector capability, considering a dusty environment. But freakn go for it if for nothing more than to build the inductor to play with!

Magnetics removal...,



Feed the overflow into your idea.

Induction heating works because of eddy currents in the conductor. An idea I've been kicking around for 1/2 year which I think would use far less current but use the same eddy current principle in a slightly different way:



But I'm not clear how far find gold can be tossed. My original test was with a drill and super powerful neodymium magnets but I don't think I had enough rotational speed.

The medal detector idea has merit, but don't think of the complex single particle sperator, think grabbing that scoop of dirt off the belt and setting it aside. Detector goes off, x seconds later a diverter moves for .y seconds grabbing that segment of material coming off the belt then closes. So now maybe 10 buckets of material become 2.

That or just run the material over an air fluid bed. Whatever happened to that guy?
 

Hoser John

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Mar 22, 2003
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#1 rule of mining is KISS-keep it simple and stupid. A drywasher already does all you seek-it preclassifies-utilizes air to create a fluidized bed,vibrates and creates a electrostatic charge,with a offset weight on the fan you then throw in a elliptical panning motion and viola your done-John
 

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Wes54321

Tenderfoot
Aug 17, 2013
8
2
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
#1 rule of mining is KISS-keep it simple and stupid. A drywasher already does all you seek-it preclassifies-utilizes air to create a fluidized bed,vibrates and creates a electrostatic charge,with a offset weight on the fan you then throw in a elliptical panning motion and viola your done-John

I totally agree with keeping it simple if you're a one man band. But how well do those drywashers scale up to the level of bulldozers and backhoes? Are there any large waterless operations in the desert? if so what are the recovery percentages of a large drywasher operation? Does anyone know what the percentages for a water sluice vs a waterless sluice are? Has anyone ever done a test where they took 30 buckets of paydirt from the same spot and run 10 buckets thru a water sluice, run 10 thru a drywasher and the last 10 buckets used mercury/cyanide extraction? The chemical way would give the the most accurate true total content of gold in a given amount of paydirt. Then you could compare that amount to the amounts retrieved from the dry and wet sluices. It would give you a good idea what kind of retrieval rates you get with each. Or maybe you could just save your tailings and perform some mercury/cyanide extraction on that and you would know how much gold your setup is leaving behind. If I were mining for gold, I think I would try to use my ingenuity as an edge to try to get more gold than anyone from tougher places with the help of technology or just clever engineering. Like when I watch that Bering Sea gold show I think... how come nobody has tried to build some sort of autonomous underwater robot or some sort of minisub to stay underwater 24/7 thru bad weather and frozen over water and just suck up all that gold. Sure it would probably be expensive, difficult and it would probably break a lot but it sure would be fun to try. Those are just my crazy thoughts.

Thanks for the feedback Hoser John! Keep Hosin!
 

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