Itronics completes installation of scale-up of its Pilot Leach plant
Published by Harleigh Hobbs,
Editor
World Fertilizer,
Itronics Inc., a growing and diversified fertilizer, silver, and minerals producer, has completed installation of a five times larger leach reactor system for its clean tech leaching technology pilot plant. The pilot plant processes internally generated low grade silver concentrates to recover raw materials for GOLD'n GRO fertilizer manufacturing and produces a high grade silver concentrate for its silver refinery.
This leaching technology is a ‘zero waste’ process because all of the feed material is converted to useable products. This technology is both cost reducing and energy saving and is environmentally green because it recovers materials for sale that were previously wasted, maximising sustainability. The technology is expected to significantly enhance the company's profitability.
Over the past year, significant improvements in process efficiency have been achieved. About 90% (about 90 lbs out of each 100 lbs) of the feed material to the leaching process) is now being recovered in a form that can be incorporated as raw material in the manufacture of the GOLD'n GRO fertilizers. The 10% solid residual that remains is a high-grade silver concentrate that contains all of the silver that was in the starting material.
Completion of the expanded pilot leach plant removes a major bottleneck for leaching the company's internally generated silver concentrates and provides excess capacity to accommodate expected growth in processing spent silver-bearing photographic liquids to support expanding GOLD'n GRO fertilizer sales and initiation of KAM-Thio sales.
Itronics anticipates that it will be able to use this pilot leaching technology for testing zinc removal from zinc-bearing flue dusts for use in manufacturing GOLD'n GRO fertilizers and other commercial products. This technology may also be useable for testing the recovery of nutrient materials and production of metal concentrates from certain types of silver batteries and from non-rechargeable alkaline battery scrap.
The company plans to operate this pilot scale leaching plant to develop operating and engineering parameters that can be used to design pilot plant circuits for other types of materials and a commercial plant for processing silver concentrates.
Itronics is continuing its e-waste refining study, and will be publishing a progress report in the near future.
Read the article online at: https://www.worldfertilizer.com/environment/07112016/itronics-completes-installation-of-scale-up-of-its-pilot-leach-plant/
You might also like
Pivot Bio sustainability programme verifies the avoidance of more than 315 000 t of CO2e since 2022
Pivot Bio has announced that growers opting to validate their implementation of better nitrogen management practices through the company’s N-OVATOR programme have avoided more than 315 000 t of CO2e over the first two years of the programme.