Redesigning a sluice box to improve on gold recovery at Kayonza mining area.

Abstract

Approximately 30 million people worldwide. are employed directly and indirectly in small-scale mining operations. Artisanal mining extraction activity has existed in Uganda since the country's independence. in 1962. Uganda is home to an. estimated 93,000 artisanal miners (with a third of these engaged in gold mining). Gold is one of the expensive minerals mined. in Uganda and is -a major source of income for most of the people who leave near the. gold mines. In areas which contain gold deposits, most of the people in those areas are partly of fully involved in the mining of the gold on small scale basis. Now artisanal gold. mining is spread across foul of the sub counties of Mubende. The Rubaali artisanal mine is the largest location with huge mining camps and a high concentration of artisanal mining operations. Hard rock ore is found on the mountain and is collected in mining pits, which are on average 30-meter-deep. The mountain hosts around 200 mining pits. Mainly sluice boxes are used in the concentration of the gold before it is panned. The sluice boxes used recover around 60% instead of 90% recover. The sluice boxes used are constructed in three different ways, i.e. the zed (Z) sluice, the slash (X) and the viz type (Basics in Minerals Processing, 2nd Edition, Metso Minerals publ, 2002). However, due to the poor sluicing methods, gold recovery is always low and sometimes the costs incurred are, always high thus need for the improvement of the gold recovery at Rubaali. This is due to the high velocity of flow of the water nature of the sisal mats used and the high inclination of the of the sluice boxes. The sluice boxes used at Rubaali recover around 50% instead of 90% recovery.