VACUUMPROCESSING OF GOLD-BEARING CLAY MATERIALS

The influence of vacuum on a spherical clay sample is investigated via numerical simulation and experiment. The temporal and radial dependences of the temperature and mass of these samples were measured in the vacuum drying process. The numerical model in which the measurements were conducted calculates the moisture and heat transfer equations, where the effective coefficients of thermal conductivity and diffusion were set equal to the coefficients of a moist porous medium. Calculations were performed for various initial and boundary conditions. The data obtained on the temperature and moisture content distributions had sufficient deviations from the experimental data; however, both described important qualitative distribution features. The results of the current paper will help in determining the conditions of effective clay disintegration, which will facilitate the extraction of gold from gold-bearing clays.