The company Itronics Inc. has recently announced it’s updating its technology developments and plans “with a focus on potential applications for silver-gold mines that have a silver to gold ratio exceeding 4 to 1 in the ore”, it’s possible to read on the firm’s website.
According to the Nevada-based business, its technology may also “prove to be applicable to certain copper-gold-silver deposits where the use of cyanide is not feasible, or not legally permissible, or where existing copper heap leaching technology would not recover associated gold and silver”.
Itronics is reviewing potential uses for the de-silvered photoliquids in silver-gold ore processing where the de-silvered liquids would be used to neutralize cyanide tailings or to replace cyanide. Itronics strips the metals out of photoliquids from the photo industry or X-rays, and uses the remaining de-silvered liquids to make award winning, environmentally beneficial GOLD’n GRO fertilizers.
Besides, the company has also assembled historical data from previous silver and gold mining reports that go back to the middle 1800s to find out more about the improvement methods and possibilities in a near future. These improvements include boosting silver and gold recovery, reducing cyanide consumption and its related costs, remediating the cyanide tailings and try to recycle certain mine waste streams.
These actions can greatly improve the spendings in specific mine operations. But to develop these methods and technologies, Itronics is seeking joint venture opportunities with previously existing projects. Although the company’s project started several years ago, it’s seeking new forms of support:
Several years ago Itronics conducted a series of laboratory tests that confirmed that the de-silvered photoliquids readily solubize copper. Because of these tests and from information in historical literature, the company believes that its de-silvered photoliquids may be used to recover copper, gold, and silver from certain types of oxidized copper-gold-silver deposits and would be used instead of the sulfuric acid recovery process presently in use. The sulfuric acid process does not recover gold and silver so the new process would offer benefits similar to those which may be achieved in silver-gold mines.
Itronic’s majority owned subsidiary, Auric Gold & Minerals, owns the 6,000 acre Fulstone Iron Oxide Copper Gold project in Nevada and continues to focus on gaining a better understanding of the project area’s structural geology and the scope of occurrence of potentially recoverable minerals with the objective of defining specific targets for initial exploratory drilling. Near the Fulstone project in the Yerington Mining District are major copper-gold-silver deposits, some of which will be developed for heap leaching that are in the development stage, making the Fulstone Project area strategically attractive.
Besides, the company’s technical services subsidiary, Whitney & Whitney, has more than 20 years of experience with cyanide applications in gold and silver mining and more than 23 years of experience with the use of complex thiosulfate chemistry in liquid fertilizers.
Taking into account the economics of the copper industry, the silver refined by Itronics is recovered from spent photo liquids, a highly acclaimed environment-friendly and beneficial process, to later produce its renowned liquid fertilizers. The technology maximizes sustainability by converting all of the silver-bearing photographic liquid waste into commercial goods for sale, so there’s no waste of any raw materials, even water. The manufacturing plant that operates this technology is a “zero discharge” facility and this is the vision that the Company plans to implement in the mining sector.