RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:CONFIRMED - Newlox is NOT green - Using Cyanide in Projects! Sorry, one more time for those in the back, what is the Merrill-Crowe process again? Here, I'll help you along to remember what you were so confident it was:
Here's your quote:
"Contrary to your claims and elementary attempts at fact deflection, Merrill Crowe is not a cyanide process. It is simply an electrowinning or electroplating step in the extraction process of metals from an aqueous solution. Electrowinning is not exclusive to cyanide and there are many other options to extract gold from solution, including standard plate and EMEW electrowinning, precipitation and ION exchange resins."
Up until now I've been content to let you figure out your mistake and gracefully admit you just didn't know so we can move on. But there's that double down again. It's beginning to feel like just a list of talking points that you unfortunately don't have much of a grasp on.
So let's talk about Merrill-Crowe. Not for you Newloxtrader, but for the people who read our exchange. Let's be honest, nobody knows everything and there's precious little time to figure out even a fraction. So hopefully this very brief overview will be helpful to some of you beautiful people out there in the ethereal nothing. Bear in mind all Newloxtrader would have to do is provide a source, any source, that describes a Merrill-Crowe process where gold-cyanide is not the feedstock, or starting chemical, to the process.
The first step is to get your gold-cyanide feedstock. This is done through a process called cyanidation whereby the pulverized gold ore is subjected to high concentrations of a cyanide solution such as sodium cyanide (NaCN). This causes the gold to dissolve into the solution and form the complex [Au(CN)2]−, which is an anion (a negatively charged ion) to it's cation pairing (positively charged ion) Na+. Now that we're ready to begin, we take our solution and dearate it (which means to remove the gases from the solution through a dearation column under vacuum) and add fine zinc powder to our highly concentrated gold-cyanide complex solution. Zinc has a higher affinity for cyanide than gold and because the solution is of high concentration gold will just precipitate out of the solution leaving the gold precipitate to be collected and processed while the 'barren solution', or rather the now zinc cyanide solution devoid of gold, is to be collected, recycled, and run through the process over and over again.
The Merrill-Crowe process is not an electrowinning or electroplating process and Newloxlurker states. The precipitation of gold will happen spontaneously at room temperature and no current is required; heat will speed up the reaction though. The Merrill-Crowe process is dependant on a gold-cyanide solution as a feedstock and this is achieved through the process of cyanidation; it is a requirement of the process itself. Reference to the use of cyanide, through the process flow posted on the website and in the company literature, is clear as day to whose who understand chemistry and gold mining. Unfortunately, Newloxlurker is just simply out of their depth and didn't realize this. Remember, all Newloxlurker has to do to prove me wrong is cite a source to the contrary..
Anyways,
Here's some homework for Newloxlurker:
"required to disclose" is a pretty strong phrase. They should have no trouble tracking down that particular requirement related to cyanide for all to see; not a voluntary disclosure mind you, but a requirement for disclosure. Note too that Newlox Gold is not mining company and those damn-confounding legal definitions really do have specific meanings when we're talking about requirements. You won't find that source later on in Newloxlurker's posts either I'm willing to bet.
Finally, Newlox Gold has stated many times that the plants are both fully permitted. Fully permitted means they have all the permits. As in every single one.. because
they are fully permitted. I'm not sure what you're missing here. I'm happy to examine your proof the contrary when (if?) you finally present it.
I'll leave with this. Its an excerpt of an article from The Voice of Guanacaste from 2018, which I was going to post separately but has relevance here:
***
“There are going to be issues with mercury, because they are prohibiting it internationally,” Nino tells us. Of the miners in the shanty, he is the one who talks most about the political and economic issues of mining.
The miners use mercury to separate gold from the other rocky materials that they extracted from the mines. They touch it with their hands and they throw it in the disc harrows where it swims for hours. Then it drains into the ground and mixes into the air.
What Nino says is true. In August 2017, the Minamata Convention on Mercury came into effect (signed by Costa Rica in 2013). It’s a global accord that seeks to reduce and, ideally, eliminate the use of mercury in activities such as mining, since it is considered a substance that affects the stomach, lungs, eyes and respiratory pathways in people. It also critically damages the environment.
Before the country signed the accord, the members of Costa Rica’s 2010-2014 congress reformed the Mining Code so that within eight years – which will be next January – Minae’s Geology and Mining office (DGM) would teach more environmentally friendly practices for processing gold. The government has not upheld its end of the bargain.
From her office in San Jos, DGM’s director Ileana Boschini tells me in a phone interview that right now the institution is still conducting research on the best alternatives for processing gold.
“Don’t you think you are starting this process late,” I ask her.
“Yes, many years went by. It wasn’t until this administration that there was interest in bringing order to many things, but the resources are very limited,” says Boschini, who has been in the job for two years.
She adds that the institution believes that cyanide is a better alternative for processing gold. “Despite the fact that is a delicate substance to handle, it’s not as dangerous as mercury.”
With mercury, miners recover less than 40 percent of the total gold inside the material, while with cyanide they can recover as much as 90 percent. But in order to use cyanide procedures, special and expensive equipment is required that will be difficult for the cooperatives to purchase.
“They are trying to form a consortium to see if they can build a large cyanide processing plant. If they continue with that spirit, the interest of joining forces to have a single plant could be successful,” Boschini says.
“Is it realistic to think that, by next year, you can change the technique?”
“It all depends on the capital they have,” she says.
***
Note that the exemption to artisanal miners in Costa Rica was extended another 4 years in January of 2019.
Costa Rica Grants Reprieve for Artisanal Miners The full article the excerpt was taken from can be found here:
Death Dressed in Gold and it's well worth the read.