VAF2014LP FILTERS
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Colorado's last remaining gold mine is tucked away in a high Rocky Mountain valley near the historic town of Cripple Creek. It has survived and is thriving today be-cause it uses the latest and most cost effective method of extracting the gold from the ore - heap leach pads.
The ore is mined and pulverized with large crushers. It's then evenly spread on huge pads that have a plastic bot-tom. Water containing 0.02% cyanide solution is then applied to the pad through an irrigation drip system. This water percolates thru the pad collecting gold in solution. This is pumped back to a processing plant where the solution gives up the gold to carbon granules. The car-bon is then stripped and the gold recovered.
The leaching solution is reused and pumped back to the pads. Some of the fine carbon particles containing gold are carried in the solution back to the pad. This gold is lost for ever - and the particles often tend to plug up the drippers.
To help recover the lost gold and protect the drippers, CC&V Gold Mine turned to Valve & Filter Corp. for a method of filtering out the carbon fines. A previously in-stalled system had failed to perform.
VAF designed and manufactured a six-filter manifold sys-tem that helps recover most of this lost gold. Since the main water circulation system operates at low pressure, it was necessary to include a high pressure flush system that isolates each filter for individual flushing. The flush water, containing concentrated levels of gold bearing car-bon fines is sent through a filter press for further de-wa-tering before it's smelted. Operation is fully automatic and maintenance is minimal. The system operates 24 hours per day.