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By N. N. Moebs

The atmosphere in part of an air-sealed coal mine was monitored continuously through a drill hole for oxygen content to determine the effectiveness of sealing a mine against the entrance of air and the major force that caused the phenomenon of mine breathing through the overburden. The differential pressure across the seal and the barometric pressure on the outside also were recorded. A general correlation, obtained between the oxygen level, differential pressure, and barometric pressure, indicates that changes in air pressure are the cause for periodic replenishment of the oxygen in the mine. Mine effluent quality was determined by conditions in many sections of the mine and could not be related to the oxygen level at the drill hole.

Jan 1, 1972

By C. A. Herbert

The mine of the Alpha Portland Cement ..Co., Iroaton, Ohio, ..working in. a. bed of limestone 96 feet thick at a depth of approximately 510 feet below the surface, has established a won¬ derful safety record, having operated 6 years—frcra September 21, 1926,. to September 21, 1932 - without a lost-time accident. This mine, with 61 to 86 employees (average 68) and daily output of 1,000 to 1,200 tons of limestone, operated 1,041 days during the 6-year period, or the equivalent of 578,894 man-hours of exposure. ...... ... . Immediately above the limestone is a 20-foot .bed of hard..sandstone.. At present about 10 feet of limestone is left up as. a roof and.about. 42 feet is being extracted. Of the lower portion of the bed it is believed that about. 25 feet. ..immediately below . the .present workings is suitable for cement and will be extracted later. The mine workings are reached by two rectangular concrete shafts, one a 2-compartment hoisting shaft and the other a 2-compartment air and escape shaft- In the latter shaft one compartment is used as an airway and the other, as a cage compartment fo.r a man and material cage. .. . - . The tipples at both the air shaft: and. hoisting shaft are-of steel. The.ground landings at both shafts are fenced in with hand-operated gates in front of the cage compartments.- The two shafts and the crushing plant, which .is.a part of the hoisting shaft-tipple structure, are adjacent to the mill buildings. The rock is hoisted on self-dumping cages in 4 ton capacity, end-gate, steel cars. An electric hoist with automatic overwind device is used at both the main shaft and air shaft. The controls for the main hoist are in the tipple where the engineman is stationed and from which point he has an unobstructed view of both the ground, landing and the cage coming into the dump.

Jan 1, 1933

By John L. Walkinshaw

It is obviously not possible in the time given me today to review in great detail all the research of the past 20 years that the (FHWA) has sponsored or participated in. In this presentation I will highlight some of the principal programs that I am familiar with. This handout lists practically all the reports prepared for the FHWA involving deep foundations and some related work involving the same structural elements (piles, shafts, ground anchors).

Jan 1, 1993

By Tatiane Haskel

A utilização de ligas Al-Si tem se expandido industrialmente principalmente no setor automobilístico. Cabeçotes, blocos de motor, rodas entre outros são exemplos de componentes produzidos com essas ligas. Estes componentes normalmente estão sujeitos a carregamento cíclico. O objetivo desse trabalho foi estudar o comportamento da liga A356 utilizando corpos de provas submetidos à fadiga por flexão rotativa nas condições brutas de fundição e tratadas termicamente por T6. Corpos de prova para ensaios de tração e de fadiga foram obtidos por fundição por gravidade em coquilhas. A comparação dos resultados foi realizada com os resultados do limite de resistência, do limite de escoamento, do alongamento e das curvas S-N. Adicionalmente análises fractográficas foram realizadas para verificar o comportamento de fratura. A liga tratada termicamente apresentou melhores resultados no ensaio de tração e de fadiga na faixa de 103<N<107.

Aug 16, 2017

By Geo. W. Goetz

The following tables show the analyses of ores from nearly all of the mines which will produce over 10,000 tons of ore each during the season of 1890. There are many small mines now in the course of development, some of which may become large producers. Many of the mines produce several different grades of ore, but the analyses given in the tables are fair averages of ore such as the respective mines can deliver. Most of these analyses were obtained from the agents of the respective ores, and are averages of the season of 1889. One can state positively that over 75 per cent. of all the iron-ores of the Lake Superior district will average over 60 per cent. of metallic iron. During the past 34 years this region has produced about 48,137,421 tons of ore, the different districts contributing about as follows: Marquette District,. 29,754,057 Menominee " .10,415,859 Gogebic " . 6,622,194 Vermilion " . 2,342,991 Miscellaneous,. .. .. 2,320 In the year 1889, the product of all the districts was nearly '1,300,000 tons. The product of the entire region for the season of 1890 may exceed 9,000,000 tons. This large amount of ore is shipped to the lower lake ports, from Escanaba, Marquette, Two Harbors and Gladstone.

Jan 1, 1891

By A. W. Khair, S. J. Jung

"A fundamental study of fragment size distribution and characteristics of fracture pattern is presented for the dynamic penetration of a conical bit into coal block. In this paper, damaged zones during crater formation and fragment size distribution were studied. Bit with a sharper tip angle and a smooth body configuration performed better penetration. Results suggest that in coal cutting the trend should be toward the face cleat direction using a sharper angled tip bits which consumes less energy for an optimum range of penetration depths, thus attaining maximum cutting efficiency and reducing fine fragments.1. INTRODUCTIONMuch research in the past has been done on energy requirements and mechanism of energy dissipation for ideal rock fragmentation in cutting process. However the mechanisms of energy dissipation or failure criteria for rocks in cutting process in order to evaluate the efficiency of energy requirements in specific rock fragmentation is not well understood. The formation of a crater in rock under the impact blow of a bit has been observed experimentally (Hartman, 1959). It is known that directly beneath the edge of the bit the rock is crushed into fine powder, toward the sides of the crater it chips out into relatively large fragments. (Sikarskie & Cheatham, 1973). Singh et al. (1967) investigated the cratering process under the two different conditions of static and dynamic loading. They found that the amount of energy consumed per unit volume of crater is unequal for the two different loading conditions. A complex network of fractures often extends downward and laterally into the rock below the bit. The surface of the specimens showed that the dynamic loading damaged larger area then the static loading."

Jan 1, 1989

By Harvey P. Knudsen

Case studies are presented in this paper to illustrate the usefulness and applicability of using conditional simulation in under- ground coal mine planning. Conditional simulation is a technique developed in the last five years that allows the building of a simulated ore body (or coal deposit) model. Construction and validation of the simulated model is described in order to show how well the model reproduces the essential characteristics of the deposit. In the model, the thickness, ash, and sulfur content are known everywhere in the deposit and each variable has the same mean, variance, and spatial variability (variogram) as that variable has in the real deposit. Use of the simulated deposit in the design of drilling strategy for long range mine planning is demonstrated in me case study. Determining the potential of short term production scheduling to reduce the fluctuations of sulfur in run of mine coal is described in the second case study.

Jan 1, 1980

Large variations of coal seam thickness and roof conditions are associated with the occurrence of mine floor undulation at Shoal Creek Mine, operated by Drummond Company, Inc.. Ground control problems, such as roof falls and face failures along with extremely high shield pressure and rapid face convergence, are often reported at the longwall face when these undulations exist. This greatly increases equipment downtime and causes production delays. As a result. a comprehensive study of mine geology including roof conditions and longwall performance were conducted in the mine. With the help of continuous full-face shield pressure monitoring using the Longwall Strata Control and Maintenance System (LoSCoMS), a large data base of shield pressure with various roof conditions has been established. This enables the mine operators to accurately evaluate the roof behavior and shield performance and to take the appropriate operational steps at the face to reduce the number of downtime and face failures. This paper summarizes all works and findings from the study including detailed roof geology and its effect on longwall performance.

Jan 1, 1998

By Peter G. Chamberlain

The surge in gold and silver prices during the 1970's attracted many new mining operators and has rekindled interest among experienced ones. With its low capital investment requirements and fast payout, leaching has attracted many operators--particularly those with small or low- grade deposits. Although in certain situations leaching offers many advantages over conventional mining methods, many operators are uncertain how these relatively new techniques should be implemented. Consequently the Bureau of Mines has prepared this circular to disseminate information on gold and silver leaching practices, techniques, and problem. Engineering data gathered from 26 operations indicate that most ores are leached in heaps following crushing and distribution on pads. Metal values are recovered from cyanide leach solutions using either zinc precipitation or charcoal adsorption. Potential problems that my hamper on block development of a leaching operation are poor percolation characteristics of the ore, calcium salt buildup, low temperatures, and solution losses. An extensive bibliography on gold and silver leaching is appended.

Jan 1, 1984

By William C. Harrigan, William D. Nix

Dynamic measurements of Young's modulus have been made for poly crystalline Ni-W alloys from room temperature to 800°C. The alloys studied range in composition from pure nickel to Ni-10 at. pct W. The results indicate that Young's modulus decreases linearly with temperature above the Curie temperature. The rate of change of Young's Modulus with temperature mas found to range from 104 psi per "C for pure nickel to 0.82 x 104 psi per °C for Mi-10 pct W. At all temperatures the elastic modulus decreases with increcrsing tungsten content up to 1 at. pct W, and increases as the tungsten content is increased above that level. Young's modulus decreases slightly as the carbon content is increased from 0.002 to 0.09 wt pct C THE knowledge of the elastic modulus of metals and alloys is important for a number of reasons. The first and most obvious reason comes from the need to predict elastic deflections under given loading conditions. A second and somewhat more subtle reason comes from the fact that the elastic properties of an alloy must be known before a proper account of the mechanisms of plastic deformation can be made. This is especially true for high-temperature creep of crystalline solids. Sherby and his coworkers have shown that the high-temperature steady-state creep rates of crystalline solids are inversely related to the elastic modulus1,2 and that the temperature dependence of the elastic modulus must be taken into account if reliable determinations of the activation energy for creep are to be made. In addition, measurements of the elastic constants of solid solutions are needed to allow one to assess the modulus interaction contribution to solid-solution Strengthening.3-5 Pelloux and Grant6 have demonstrated that substantial solid-solution strengthening at room temperature and elevated temperatures occurs when refractory metal solute atoms are added to nickel. While the high-temperature elastic properties of pure nickel have been measured by a number of authors,7-10 the elastic properties of nickel-based refractory metal alloys have not been determined. The purpose of this paper is to report on measurements of Young's modulus of polycrystalline Ni-W alloys at elevated temperatures. It is expected that these measurements will be valuable to studies of the mechanical properties of nickel-based refractory metal solid solutions. I) EXPERIMENTAL Young's moduli of polycrystalline samples were determined by a dynamic method in order to reduce high- temperature anelastic and plastic relaxations. The samples were forced in transverse free-free vibration; that is, both ends of the sample were unrestrained and the vibration was transverse to the long axis. The fundamental resonant frequency was determined by the Forster method.11 The analysis of this type of vibration which was formulated by Rayleigh,12 Timo-chenko,13 and pickett,14 and reviewed by Fine," leads where fn is the resonant frequency of the nth mode, r is the radius of the circular cross section. L is the specimen length, ßn is 1.5056 for free-free vibration in the fundamental mode of vibration, 6 is the mass density, and E is Young's modulus in the axial direction. This equation can be transformed into: E = 9.17605 x 10-6(L/D)E/Lf2 [2] where E is Young's modulus in psi, L is the length in inches, d is the diameter in inches, W is the weight in grams, and f is the resonance frequency in cps. Eq. [2] was further modified in order to take account of the thermal expansion of the samples. The resulting correct term is: where the thermal expansion coefficients for nickel and tungsten, respectively. Xw is the atom fraction of tungsten in the sample and T is the temperature in "C. The treatment of the thermal expansion coefficient as a linear function of composition seems sufficiently accurate since an error of 25 pct in the expansion coefficient will result in only a 0.3 pct error in the modulus at 1000°C. A) Apparatus. The equipment for this investigation has been described by Lytton et al.16 Several modifications of the equipment have been made. The most significant change involved replacing the detector crystal transducer with a magnetic transducer. A phonographic magnetic transducer was employed as a sensing device since the contact pressure necessary to produce a stable signal is much less than that for a crystal transducer. This magnetic transducer is also not affected by conditions of high temperature and vacuum which are present in these experiments. The vacuum was 10-5 torr at room temperature and about 5 x 10-4 torr at 900°C. This was sufficient to prevent surface contamination of the samples during the tests. The samples were heated in an elliptical furnace with a quartz lamp at one focal line and the sample at the other, as described by Lytton et a1.16 The temperature of the sample was measured by monitoring the

Jan 1, 1969

By William W. Shriver

When the Henderson Project is completed in 1975, it will become one of the Free World's largest primary molybdenum producers. The Henderson Mine will be located approximately 50 miles west of Denver, Colorado, on the eastern slope of the Continental Divide. Ore reserves are currently estimated to be 303,000,000 tons with a grade of 0.49% MoS2. The mill and tailing area will be located approximately 14.5 miles from the mine in the Williams Fork Valley, which is on the western slope of the Continental Divide. Ore haulage from the mine to the mill will be by ten miles of underground railroad and 4.5 miles of surface railroad. The concentrator has been designed to mill 30,000 tons per day and will yield approximately 50,000,000 pounds of contained molybdenum per year. This paper is concerned with the tailing and water supply system for the Henderson Project and in particular the environmental considerations affecting their design.

Jan 1, 1970

By G. B. Harris, C. W. White

Cyanide has been used for the recovery of gold since the mid 1800s, but several jurisdictions have already banned its use, and environmental pressures are increasing to finding an alternative. Gold also forms chloride complexes similar to those of cyanide, but the use of chloride has never achieved widespread acceptance. This paper describes a chloride-based flowsheet, wherein the key unit process is the recovery and recycle of chloride ion. It is shown that the chloride-based flowsheet is competitive economically with the conventional cyanide-based flowsheets, and that it has a number of other advantages, particularly environmentally.

Jan 1, 2011

By M Aros, L Reilly

Iron ore is normally sold in bulk at certain specifications. These include iron grade and specific contaminant grades, typically silica, alumina, phosphorous and sulfur. These target grades are normally agreed between the mining company (producer) and the steelmaking company (customer).This study presents an alternative to traditional cut-off grade calculation, using linear programming that maximises the total ore inventories within a predefined mining envelope while meeting the specified targets. Providing a feasible mining sequence that maintains the target grade is not covered in this study.The method was applied to Fortescue’s operations. The complexity arising from differing ore quality within each mining horizon, variable yields and upgrades and the need to control iron and contaminant grades provided a good opportunity to test an alternative method of ore selection. The new method significantly reduced the time spent in cut-off selection and sensitivity analysis, and provided an optimised solution.CITATION:Aros, M and Reilly, L, 2014. Ore selection optimisation for an iron ore deposit using linear programming, in Proceedings Orebody Modelling and Strategic Mine Planning Symposium 2014, pp 345–350 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

Nov 24, 2014

By T D. H McGrath, R Byleveld, W P. Staunton, J J. Eksteen

"The Gold Technology Group at Curtin University through the AMIRA P420 series of projects has recently developed the integrated liberation leach model (ILLM) for optimisation of gold plants. The model encompasses recovery by both gravity (batch centrifugal concentrators or BCCs) and leach adsorption (CIP/CIL) circuits. The ILLM essentially combines the Group’s well-known standalone models (ie gravity and SIMCIL) to create a robust simulation package.The ILLM process model provides a tool for sites to determine optimum set points for operations to optimise recovery (eg target grind size). It can also be used to predict the effect on gravity recovery, leach recovery and overall recovery when changes are made to circuit design, either temporarily (eg a leach tank taken off-line for maintenance) or as part of a circuit expansion (eg expanded gravity circuit capacity, or addition of leach tank capacity).This paper discusses the capability of the ILLM process model by highlighting a recent case study. The paper also addresses the test work and plant data required as model inputs, as well as limitations and the application of the ILLM to greenfield projects.Citation:McGrath, T D H, Staunton, W P, Eksteen, J J and Byleveld, R, 2016. Application of an Integrated Liberation Leach Model for Process Optimisation, in Proceedings 13th AusIMM Mill Operators’ Conference 2016, pp 173–178 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne)."

Oct 10, 2016

By Charles F. Stack

The A. P. Green Refractories Co. operates clay mines in ten states. Eight of these states have reclamation laws with which we have to comply and indications are that the U. S. Congress will pass a federal surface mining reclamation act in the near future. These regulations, in addition to the value of land in most areas, dictate that mining and reclamation be considered as a single operation. In many instances the land may be more valuable after properly planned mining and reclamation than before. Refractory clay, commonly called "fire clay" is defined as a siliceous clay rich in hydrous aluminum silicates, capable of withstanding high temperatures. It is deficient in iron, calcium, and alkalies and approaches kaolin on composition. Refractory clay is much more limited in occurrence and usage than common clay or shale. During 1971, common clays and shales were mined in 47 states with a total production of 45 million tons. Fire clay production was reported in 22 states with a total production of only slightly over 3 million tons.(1) Many of these producing areas are extremely limited in extent and production. Several are contained within a one or two county area. This reflects the unique geological conditions required for the formation or development of fire clay. The major fire clay producing areas in the United States are shown in Figure 1.

Jan 1, 1974

By Claudio Olalla

This paper relates to the foundation of a steel structure located at the San Martin de la Vega (Madrid) amusement park. The structure has more than 100 supports with various loading conditions, including important horizontal and uplift forces. Additionally, the settlement tolerances are very strict. A massive gypsum formation with interbedded clay layers and random solution great voids at various levels constitute the soil. The foundation design has been conditioned large enough these difficulties (load conditions and soil problems). The piling machine used was powerful to drill through the soft rock (UCS up to 11Mpa). The integrity of each pile had to be guaranteed by continuous recording of drilling and concrete pouring parameters. In order to fulfil all those conditions, a STARSOL type-piling rig was used. More than 4500 meters of piles were performed. The diameters of the piles were 450 and 550-mm and their depths varies from 6 to 23 meters. All piles were reinforced over their full length.

Jan 1, 2002

By V. H. Valenzuela

Materials in process or in stocks are quite relevant items in almost every plant, particularly in mining operations, where efficiency in rate of recovering material of interest becomes a key issue when production costs are evaluated. A manager requires information to do an effective use of the resources, especially when raw materials are involved. Losses associated to leaking, efficiency in the transformation process, performance of equipment, and operating conditions are a short list of items which must be properly identified and evaluated. Operations supervisors require information in order to keep key process variables under control. Because of these information needs, it is absolutely necessary to carry on a series of activities related with installation and maintenance of measuring equipment, sampling equipment, sample preparation, chemical analysis, statistical analysis, data handling and reports generation. These pieces of data must be managed on a wise manner in order to get the most of it, keeping always on mind data reliability. Normally, information related with metallurgical balance and even more, the metallurgical balance concept, is handled under an accounting criteria which does not allow dealing with the real world. This situation happens because the criteria utilized do not consider aspects such as bias and uncertainty associated with every measurement that affect the quality of the information and therefore conclusions drawn from it. The purpose of this paper is to give a few rules, necessary to follow, in order to develop an adequate Metallurgical Balance System for an operational point of view. The Gaussian approach for error propagation is used as a basis, allowing one to know the actual uncertainty of the balance and the way how it can be improved. A few real applications of this concept are listed, detailing experiences obtained from practice.

Jan 1, 2007

By S. Horton, F. L. Stanley, P. J. Bethell

Introduction The McClure River Processing Plant is located at McClure in Dickenson County, VA. The plant was originally constructed in 1979 as a 600 st per hour facility. The plant is fed by coals from numerous mines in the area as well as a major longwall mine onsite. Coal is processed predominantly for the metallurgical coal market. The original plant was comprised of three separate processing circuits incorporating a heavy medium vessel for the coarse material (+10 mm). Intermediate sized material (10 x 0.6 mm) was beneficiated in heavy medium cyclones, with the remaining fines (0.6 mm x 0) passing to froth flotation for upgrading. The products from all three circuits were combined prior to thermal drying and then stored in silos or ground storage prior to shipment to the metallurgical coal markets. A middlings heavy medium cyclone circuit was also present to rewash the vessel and primary heavy medium cyclone rejects. The original circuit is as shown as Fig. 1 (Editor's note: All figures are reproduced at the end of this paper.) In reasonably close proximity to the McClure Plant is the much older, less efficient Moss 1 Plant, (Chance cone, table, water only cyclone, froth flotation, Fig. 2), which prior to the McClure Plant expansion was processing considerable tonnages of coal. At that time, the McClure River Plant was processing coal at the maximum possible feed rate, and the Moss 1 Plant was finding increasing difficulty in maintaining the stringent quality specifications on its major metallurgical coal accounts. Given the fact that many of the feeder coals to Moss 1 could be moved with minimal difficulty and cost to McClure, an exercise was conducted to evaluate the potential of expanding the McClure Plant. This would result in transferring coals from Moss 1, thereby increasing yield, reducing operating costs, and enabling customer specifications to be met more easily. After evaluating many possible ways of expanding the McClure Plant, we eventually settled on an approach based on the idea of Gallagher at German Creek in Australia (Gallagher, 1986). Our objective was to increase plant capacity by removing the coarser size fractions (0.60 x 0.15 mm) from froth flotation and at the same time eliminating the finer fractions (1.25 x 0.6 mm) from the heavy medium cyclone circuit, thereby allowing these circuits and therefore the plant as a whole to increase its capacity. These size fractions (0.60 x 0.15 mm from froth flotation and 1.25 x 0.6 mm from the heavy medium cyclone circuit) would be treated in a new spiral circuit. After desired evaluation of the various circuit capacities, including desliming screen, clean coal filter and thermal dryer capacities, etc., it was concluded that we should be able to maintain high levels of processing efficiency in the existing circuitry while at the same time expanding plant feed rate from a nominal 600 st per hour to 1000 st per hour, thereby achieving the objectives The circuit that was finally settled on is shown in Fig. 2. Several unique features were incorporated in this circuit in an attempt to maximize processing efficiency and reduce maintenance costs. First, the idea of a single-stage spiral circuit was abandoned in favor of a two-stage circuit incorporating rewashing the primary spiral middlings in a secondary spiral (Bethell, 88). The spirals selected were Mineral Deposits Model LD4 units. It was felt, after much previous testing, that spiral middlings rather than being a true middling gravity fraction were in fact a combination of true middlings with a preponderance of misplaced light coal and high-density rock. Consequently the insertion of this material directly into either clean coal or refuse streams (per normal practice) would only lead to loss of efficiency. The operating philosophy behind the design of the circuit was to produce the purest coal and rejects possible by adjusting the spiral splitters. Misplacement of refuse into the clean coal and vice versa would be minimized by taking a fairly large middlings cut. By reprocessing this material (10%-15% of primary spiral feed) in a secondary bank of spirals the misplaced material in the primary middlings would be reprocessed and its probability of reporting to the correct stream greatly enhanced. To minimize fines loading on the spirals, fine aperture sieve bends were to be included. A further novel feature of the circuitry is the desliming/ dewatering system. A philosophy of accepting inefficiency but forcing it to work in our favor was developed. The dewatering screens (Linatex Combis) were chosen not for their ultimate screening efficiency but for their ability to remove slimes (tolerating a fair quantity of oversize in the effluent) and their enhanced maintenance characteristics. Any oversize passing into the effluent, together with the fine coal centrifuge effluent, would pass to classifying cyclones, the objective of which was to reject to overflow (and hence froth flotation) as many fines as possible (-150 µm) without running the risk of losing coarse (1.25 x 0.15 mm) material to oversize. Hence, by a process of producing a "slime free" screen product coupled with a "coarse free" cyclone overflow, sizing efficiency could be maximized. Obviously, recirculating load had to be factored into the Combi Screen design capacity. The spiral circuit as shown in Fig. 2 was installed at McClure River in January 1988. The spiral circuit efficiency was very high immediately, and, after the normal debugging, plant capacity has been increased to the point at which we are currently processing of the order of 1100 st per hour. Test program The performance of the spiral circuit has been evaluated by two major samplings of the entire new circuit, coupled with routine bi-monthly tests on all other major components of the plant circuitry.

Jan 1, 1992

Advanced high temperature electrochemical systems such as fuel cells, electrolyzers and ionic transport membranes are currently being developed for a wide variety of energy conversion, storage and gas cleanup applications. These systems offer high electrical efficiency, multi fuel capability, modular construction, no/negligible emissions (SOx, NOx, VOC, particulate matters) with capability to sequester green house gas emissions (GHG). Electrochemical processes and electrode reactions will be discussed. Cell and stack component materials and fabrication processes will be presented. Bulk, surface and interface degradation processes responsible for cell and stack performance degradation will be examined.

Jan 1, 2005

By A. S. Ibrado

Research investigations on the chemistry of the adsorption of gold cyanide on activated carbon have mostly reduced the role of activated carbon as the provider of the large surface area needed for adsorption. Most do not go beyond suggesting that oxygen functional groups on carbon play a key role in the adsorption process. Our research shows that the nature of the material, specifically its structure, is a crucial factor in the adsorption equation. To delineate the effect of adsorbent properties, gold cyanide was adsorbed on a series of carbonaceous adsorbents, including lignite, coals, anthracites, carbon blacks, graphite and activated carbon, which covers wide variations of composition, surface acid group content, and degree of graphitization. The results show that the adsorption of gold cyanide per unit area of adsorbent is not related to the amount of oxygen groups on the surface or even the total oxygen content of the material. However, they show very strong correlation with the degree of graphitization of the adsorbent, which indicates that the graphitic plates of activated carbon play the most important role. The findings suggest that majority of the adsorption occurs on the plate faces of the graphite crystallites of activated carbon.

Jan 1, 1992