How to Recover Cadmium & Nickel from Scrap Batteries
The manufacture and use of nickel-cadmium alkaline storage batteries in the United States began to grow at a rapid pace in the late 1950’s. The batteries have found use in a wide variety of consumer appliances, electronic units, industrial equipment, communication devices, and space applications. The U.S. Department of Defense is the biggest single user […]
Recycling and Disposal of Solid Mining Wastes
The Interior Department’s Bureau of Mines has always considered the waste products and scrap generated by the mineral and metals industries and the consuming public as potential resources, The Bureau has been active in reclaiming values from byproducts of mineral, metal, and energy processes for over 50 years. This statement is supported by the continuity […]
How to Recover Copper from Slag by Flotation
The bulk of the world’s output of copper is produced by smelting copper sulfide flotation concentrates in reverberatory furnaces, followed by oxidizing the matte to blister copper in a converter. Slags produced in the converter are too high in copper to be sent to the dump and are returned to the reverberatory furnace for recovery […]
How to Recover Nonferrous Metals from Auto Shredder Rejects
Two major methods are available for effective recycling of metallic values in discarded automobiles. The first of these is the incineration, din- mantling, and baling or baling-shearing method. The economics of this operation were reported in 1969. The second procedure is that of shredding, in which a partially dismantled automobile less radiator, battery, tires, differential, […]
Electrowinning Tungsten
We demonstrated techniques for the electrowinning of tungsten directly from scheelite concentrate. The major problem with direct electrowinning is the accumulation of lime (CaO) in the electrolyte. Scheelite mineral concentrates usually contain 60 to 70 weight-percent WO3 and about 20 weight-percent CaO. The results of the CaO buildup are decreased metal purity, increased electrolyte viscosity, […]
Recover Uranium from Water by Countercurrent Ion Exchange
Ion exchange techniques have been used to recover uranium from waters pumped from uranium mines in the Ambrosia Lake district of New Mexico since about 1963. More recently., the natural flow of mine water and the recovery of uranium have been augmented by routinely spraying abandoned areas of the mine with barren solution from the […]
How to Sample Gold Lode Deposits
Placer and lode gold deposits near Bluff, Seward Peninsula, Alaska (fig. 1), were investigated during July and August 1966. The primary objective of this Bureau of Mines investigation was to sample a typical gold lode deposit as a basis for estimating the potential economic value of the lode sources of the productive Seward Peninsula gold […]
Heavy Liquid Separation
We are continuously engaged in research activities to develop or improve methods of utilizing our mineral resources. One such method, heavy liquid separation (HLS), has long been a recognized laboratory technique to separate minerals but only in recent years has this method been considered as a continuous process. The best prospects appear to be the […]
What is the Effect of Ammonia in Cyanide Solution during Copper Leaching
Under the conditions evaluated in this investigation, the extraction of copper from an argillaceous ore was not affected by the addition of ammonia to a cyanide solvent but was entirely dependent on the cyanide concentration. A number of investigators have evaluated cyanide complexes as catalysts for the cyanidation of gold and silver ores. However, cyanide […]
How to make Bricks from Mill Tailings
Most of the primary copper produced in the United States is derived from porphyry-type ore deposits located in Arizona, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah (Intermountain States). In milling these low-grade ores to produce a smelting-grade concentrate, enormous tonnages of finely ground tailings are discarded. The vast accumulation of these wastes from past operations and […]