[maxvortex]

Hi.

I'm just wondering what will happen if i melt river sand in some special container.
Would gold / pyrite / quartz etc. melt together or will they be separated ?

As far as i know, gold will melt first but pyrite has almost the same melting point.
Will they mix together or not ?.
And what's with other parts ? Sand, quartz etc.

Shorty, as  you can guess :-) am trying to separate gold from the sand and am using very strong heater, so getting to the melting point isn't any problem...

max

[billnotgatez]

What are your thoughts on this after a GOOGLE on
Gold extraction?

[Intanjir]

Won't pyrite just combust? Iron has more affinity for oxygen then sulfur. I would expect it would convert to iron oxide below the melting point if heated in air, and give off noxious sulfurous fumes that may present a significant safety hazard.

If you manage to melt the quartz while trying to melt the gold then you overshot by about 1000 degrees F.

[Enthalpy]

I wonder how economic the process is. How expensive the heat, how valuable the gold. Did you evaluate that?

[maxvortex]

I searched google before i asked this question, but i didn't find anything that i can use.
No one is using this heating method. Instead, they are using chemical reaction.

My idea is to heat all up and to see if gold will separate form rest of the sand.

@Intajir
- this is the main problem. I dont know will they mix together and what kind of gas will be produced.
- i can control the heat source and it's solar heater, so there is no cost in this part...
- the heater setup is similar to this : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drE54ctrHBY

MV

[Intanjir]

Sulfur dioxide I would imagine.
Both quartz and iron oxide will remain as solids.
The gold would probably puddle out on the bottom as it is the densest.
However if the sandy material was fine enough then it is conceivable that the gold might be trapped by capillary forces.

I do not think the fresnel heat source is viable. You may be able to melt small samples but you will not be able to process a large volume of material that way. There just is not enough sunlight.

[Arkcon]

Silica melts at ridiculously high temperatures.  Being careless with molten glass can cost a person an eye, more so with silica.  Like most other people, I have no idea what you're talking about "melting" pyrite -- FeS will decompose.  I guess you mean melting the sulfides to iron?  Then yes, the gold will definitely alloy with the iron.  But there's too much else going on.  Like others said, the traces of gold (and you're only going to find traces, its gold after all) will be lost, even if they theoretically separate.

[AWK]

Au content in sand is so small that your method is absolutely useless.