PROCESSING

KCA advances Carbon Converter

Kappes, Cassiday & Associates (KCA) continues to make advances on its Carbon Converter for converting carbon fines into carbon-free ash for recovery of gold and silver

Staff reporter
The skid-mounted carbon converter allows direct on-site gold recovery

The skid-mounted carbon converter allows direct on-site gold recovery

PRESS RELEASE: The unit can accept very dirty carbon, even mixtures of 70% clay-rich ore fines and 30% carbon fines. KCA is seeing process plants with much more gold in their fines than expected, and it is not uncommon for the on-site inventory of these materials to contain more than US$2 million of gold and silver.

The skid-mounted carbon converter allows direct on-site recovery of this inventory at an operating cost (excluding labor) of less than US$80.00 per tonne (labor can add $300-2000 per tonne depending on labor cost).

Mercury is recovered separately for disposal, and mercury-free ash can be either smelted or cyanide leached to recover over 98% of contained precious metals. KCA has spent six years and nearly $3 million to develop a very sophisticated unit, and has just received its first two orders. KCA will begin commercial fabrication of these units within the next month.

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