Gekko Systems and Evident boost gold process monitoring

X-ray fluorescence (XRF) specialist Evident Industrial and Ballarat, Victoria mining equipment manufacturer Gekko Systems have joined forces to enable Gekko’s Carbon Scout device to conduct multi-element, real-time analysis of carbon in gold extraction circuits.

The Carbon Scout is an automated sampling system that measures carbon concentration, as well as multi-elements analysis of pH, dissolved oxygen (DO), and density in slurry samples from CIL and CIP circuits.

Carbon-in-leach (CIL) and carbon-in-pulp (CIP) circuits are cyanidation processes that extract gold from ore into a water-soluble form which can be recovered utilising activated carbon.

Adding multi-element analysis to Carbon Scout helps gold mine operators optimise process plant efficiency and reduce soluble gold losses by determining the distribution of the activated carbon in the pulp for each tank (to an accuracy of ±0.5 grams of carbon per litre of pulp).

The Carbon Scout can now incorporate the Olympus Vanta M series handheld XRF analyser commonly used in the mining industry.

The Vanta pXRF analyzer provides accurate chemistry for more than 30 elements in solids and liquids samples — from trace levels to percent levels across the entire mineral cycle.

Its accuracy, and precision enables the Carbon Scout to provide real-time monitoring of gold loading on carbon in every process tank within a mine site.

Site managers can use the live data to confirm that the maximum gold load required in each tank is not exceeded and that carbon is moved and stripped as needed.

The data also gives a clear view of production achievements and whether targets can be met before undertaking the end-of-month gold-in-circuit inventory.

Further reading:
Gekko launches updated gold processing system

Picture: Gekko Systems