SBIR Phase I: An Economic, Sustainable, Green, Gold Isolation Process

该小型企业研究第1阶段项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力是开发一种新的、更便宜的工艺，在不使用氰化钠和不污染环境的情况下开采黄金和银。这将使开发新的“绿色”矿山成为可能，既环保又经济可行。目前的技术水平是使用120年历史的氰化钠工艺，在世界范围内大规模进行。西北大学发现的新工艺正在由Cycladex进一步开发。黄金和银开采仍然是美国的一个重要行业，拥有大量尚未开发的储量，如果成功，这一新工艺将创造就业机会，并增加美国对其自身资源的开发。本项目中拟议的技术开发将有助于直接解决当前金矿开采技术的环境、经济、健康和社会影响和惠益，改善工人的健康和安全，加强地方和土著社区及妇女的参与，并促进发展中国家和发达国家的可持续采矿做法。第三世界的穷人仍然开采着大约18%的黄金，他们使用液态汞来提取黄金。第一阶段研究的目标是使用新的Cycladex技术开发一种商业工艺，证明其经济性，并开发一种可以在金矿中扩大规模的制造工艺。有两个部分需要开发，首先使用环境友好的试剂提取黄金，然后使用商业上可获得的天然产品通过结晶分离黄金。该项目将重点建立一种新型且上级的可持续黄金生产工艺，与当今技术相比，该工艺具有高选择性、生产率、资本成本和工艺经济性。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Research Phase 1 project is to develop a new, cheaper process to mine gold and silver without using and polluting the environment with sodium cyanide. This will allow the development of new "green" mines, that are environmentally friendly and economically viable. The current state of the art is to use the 120yrs old sodium cyanide process carried out at vast scale worldwide. The new process, discovered at Northwestern University is being further developed by Cycladex. Gold and silver mining is still an important industry for the US with substantial yet untapped reserves and this new process if successful will generate jobs and increase the US development of its own resources. The proposed technology development with in this project will help directly address the environmental, economic, health and social impacts and benefits of current gold mining technology, improving workers' health and safety, enhancing the participation of local and indigenous communities and women and fostering sustainable mining practices in the developing and developed world. About 18% of all gold is still mined by the poor in the third world who use liquid mercury to extract gold.The objectives of this Phase 1 research are to develop a commercial process using the new Cycladex technology, prove the economics and to develop a manufacturing process, which can be scaled up at a gold mine. There are two parts to be developed, the initial extraction of gold using environmentally benign agents and then the isolation of the gold by crystallization using a commercially available natural product. The project will focus on establishing a novel and superior sustainable gold production process with high selectivity, productivity, capital cost and process economics compared to today's technologies.