Hydroseparation (http://www.cnt-mc.com) was used to concentrate sized fractions (from <38 m to 150 m) of various ore products ahead of carbon-in-pulp (cip)-treatment. the resulting size-by-size concentrates were mounted as monolayer polished sections and subjected to automated unattended precious metal searches by image analysis (see lastra, wilson and cabri, 1999)._x000d_>
Systematic variations in Au-deportment permit quantification of Au reporting as discrete grains from fresh-feed through to pressure oxidation (POX)- and CIP-feed. Application of hydroseparation, image analysis and assays to characterising tailings (from <10 m to 106 m) from four mine sites is also described. results are encouraging enough to predict that the combination of hydroseparation (hs) and automated image analysis could become a standard methodology for study of precious metal ores and metallurgical products.>