Iron ore turned into gold

Patent number: 2742554

Authors: Vladimir Chekushin, Maxim Chekushin, Natalia Oleynikova, Natalia Marchenko

Patent owner: Siberian Federal University

Russian scientists have patented a technology to extract gold from a particular type of iron ore – magnetic scrap. Magnetic scrap is an ore containing iron and a small fraction of gold (50-500 g/ton). This ore is mixed with molten lead and alkali; then magnets are submerged in the resulting melt to remove the iron.

The result is an enriched alloy with a high content of gold, which in the second stage can be processed with traditional technologies to obtain high purity gold. The resulting extraction rate of the noble metal is around 99%. Among the important advantages of the technology is the multiple reusability of the components at the first stage of extraction and the almost complete absence of chemical losses. It ensures that this extraction method is economically profitable for processing large volumes of iron ore.