MODULAR RECOVERY PLANTS

Since 1972, KCA has fabricated portable or modular carbon adsorption, carbon desorption, carbon stripping and Merrill-Crowe plants. KCA’s plants have earned an outstanding reputation for quality, simplicity, ease of start up and fail-safe operation. Modular plants can be constructed for gold operations treating up to 4,000 tonnes of ore per day. Above that size, plants are built on-site. 

KCA’s modular plants allow for rapid installation at remote sites, are easily movable, and have a high resale value.

KCA offers four different modular ADR plant models:

KCA also manufactures modular Merrill-Crowe recovery plants for operations processing up to 10,000 tonnes of gold/silver ore per day ranging from 20 to 500 m³/hr:

A list of projects for which KCA has fabricated modular plants is presented below.

Precious Metal Plants

OperationLocationTypeSize (m³/hr)
Afema Ivory Coast Carbon Adsorption & Ethanol Strip 50
Afema II Ivory Coast Carbon Adsorption & Ethanol Strip 100
Afema II Ivory Coast Carbon Regeneration 25 kg/hr
Al Hajal Saudi Arabia Carbon Adsorption & Ethanol Strip 15
Ashanti Ghana Carbon Adsorption & Ethanol Strip 125
Aurex Peru Merrill-Crowe 30
Aurora United States Carbon Adsorption & Ethanol Strip 50
Bolnisi Georgia, CIS Carbon Regeneration 25 kg/hr
Bolnisi Georgia, CIS Carbon Adsorption & Ethanol Strip 50
Cetco Mill Russia Vacuum/Deaeration Circuit 250
Choquelimpie Chile Carbon Adsorption & Ethanol Strip 225
Cripple Creek United States Carbon Adsorption & Ethanol Strip 55
El Cubo Phase I Mexico Merrill-Crowe 120
El Cubo Phase II Mexico Merrill-Crowe 121
El Magistral Mexico Carbon Adsorption 70
El Plomo United States Carbon Adsorption & Ethanol Strip 15
Essakan Burkina Faso Carbon Adsorption & Ethanol Strip 30
Fazenda Nova Brazil Carbon Adsorption 450
Getchell United States Carbon Adsorption & Ethanol Strip 45
Gilbert United States Carbon Adsorption & Ethanol Strip 50
Gordex New Brunswick Carbon Adsorption & Ethanol Strip 30
Hassai Sudan Carbon Adsorption & Ethanol Strip 20
Hassai Sudan Carbon Regeneration 25 kg/hr
Hayden Hill United States Carbon Adsorption 45
Ivrindi Turkey Carbon Adsorption 3200
La Sorpresa Mexico Merrill-Crowe 65
Little Bald Mtn. United States Carbon Adsorption & Ethanol Strip 20
Magistral Mexico Carbon Adsorption & Ethanol Strip 70
Marvel Loch Australia Carbon Adsorption & Ethanol Strip 35
Mascota Mexico Carbon Adsorption 340
Newmont Tailings United States Carbon Adsorption 22
San Antonio Mexico Merrill-Crowe 70
San Martin Mexico Merrill-Crowe 70
Santiago de Chuco Peru Carbon Adsorption & Zadra Strip 20
Santiago de Chuco Peru Carbon Regeneration 42 kg/hr
Scott-European Russia Carbon Adsorption & Zadra Strip 20
Seligdar Siberia Carbon Adsorption & Zadra Strip 50
SSATE Saudi Arabia Carbon Adsorption & Ethanol Strip 125
Sterling United States Carbon Adsorption & Zadra Strip 35
Sterling II United States Carbon Adsorption & Ethanol Strip 200
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Operation

Afema
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Al Hajal

The Al Hajal plant (also used at the Hamdah project) in Saudi Arabia is a complete plant for production of dore gold bars, mounted in a 6-meter (20-foot) container. The smelting furnace can be seen on the concrete slab on the right side of the photo. This size plant is ideal for heap leach tests or very high grade small operations (producing up to 400 tonnes of ore per day).

Ashanti

Sansu plant Shipping out of Reno, NV

Outside of Sansu Plant

Sansu Electrowinning Cell Room

Sansu Adsorption Plant

Choquelimpie

This seven million tonne gold heap leach is located at an altitude of 4600 meters (15,000 feet) in northern Chile. Through its associated company, Decommissioning Services LLC, KCA provided engineering, procurement and construction management (EPCM), and then subsequently entered into a 2-year contract to provide complete project operations management services.

The heap was an accumulation of ore from an on-off heap leach formerly operated by a large international mining corporation, Billiton. Based on an evaluation of exploration drillholes into the heap, KCA was able to show that washing would mitigate an environmental problem (high residual cyanide) and recover significant amounts of gold and silver. Under contract to the client, KCA designed and installed a stabilizing butress, a recovery plant, and a complete heap piping system. During three years of “washing”, precious metals production exceeded 30,000 ounces of gold, essentially in agreement with the projection made by KCA at the start of the project. The client realized an operating profit on this environmental cleanup project.

Getchell

Getchell Plant

The Getchell, Nevada, Carbon ADR plant consists of a five-stage vertical tower adsorption column. Desorption and electrowinning take place inside the trailer. KCA has built several tower column plants, which offer portability and compact size.

The ore treated in this 1200 ton per day heap leach was unique in that it was high in oxidizing sulfides, including very reactive arsenic sulfides (orpiment and realgar). Solution exiting the heap was colored deep blue with iron ferrocyanide – a classic indicator of oxygen deficiency. Nevertheless, gold recovery was good, and by controlling cyanide addition rates the consumption of cyanide was maintained within economic limits.

KCA provided the lab testing, design, engineering, and construction management of the heap leach and recovery systems. KCA supplied the agglomeration drum and conveying and stacking systems, and a 180 gallon per minute five-stage tower column plant for carbon adsorption. In 1988, this plant was repurchased by KCA and re-installed at the Atlas Gold Bar mine.

Little Bald Mountain Mine

KCA conducted laboratory investigations on ore samples from the deposit, provided conceptual design of heap leach pads and ponds, and developed the operating philosophy. KCA also provided the design, construction, and start-up of a complete gold adsorption-desorption-recovery plant rated at a production capacity of 300 tons per day. Direct capital and operating costs were repaid within the first season.

The Little Bald Mountain plant is typical of small ADR plants (Adsorption-Desorption-Recovery Plants) built by KCA.

All operations needed for recovery of gold and silver from solution onto activated carbon, desorption, and electrowinning of metal bullion, are included in a 40-ft (12 meter) trailer or shipping container.