Gold Gravity Processing Plant

1. Crushing & Grinding: Free Gold Particles 

Gold is often embedded in hard rock (e.g., quartz veins) or mixed with sand/gravel. The first step is to break down the ore to expose gold particles:

● Crushing: Jaw crushers (primary) and cone crushers (secondary) reduce large ore chunks (500–800mm) to small particles (20–30mm).

● Grinding: Ball mills or rod mills grind the crushed ore into a fine pulp (200–325 mesh). This step is critical—gold particles must be fully dissociated from gangue to ensure effective separation.

2.Gravity Concentration: Separate Gold from Gangue

The ground pulp is fed into gravity separation equipment. Here, gold (heavier) is concentrated, while gangue (lighter) is discarded as tailings:

● Equipment like jigs, shaking tables, or spiral chutes use water flow and gravity to sort particles.

● For fine-grained gold, centrifugal concentrators (e.g., Knelson concentrators) enhance gravity force (10–30x Earth’s gravity) to capture tiny gold particles that regular equipment might miss.

3.Cleaning & Purification: Upgrade Gold Concentrate

The initial concentrate (containing gold and some heavy gangue minerals like pyrite) undergoes further cleaning:

● Repeated processing with shaking tables or centrifugal concentrators removes remaining impurities.

● For high-purity needs, the concentrate can be sent to a smelter or leaching unit (e.g., cyanide-free leaching) to obtain gold doré bars (crude gold-silver alloy).

4.Tailings Disposal: Environmental Compliance

Tailings (gangue minerals after concentration) are treated with water recycling systems to recover usable water. The dry tailings are either stored in tailings ponds (with anti-seepage measures) or reused for mine reclamation—minimizing environmental impact.