SlamJet Spargers in Leaching
More Metal.
Lower Cost.
Zero Downtime.
If your operation relies on conventional spargers, you're leaving gold and silver in the tank. Eriez SlamJet® eliminates the oxygen-transfer bottleneck — delivering up to +2% Au and +6% Ag recovery, lower reagent costs, and online serviceability across prea-aertion, cyanidation, and detox circuits.
SlamJet's microbubble generation technology improves oxygen transfer efficiency, increases dissolved oxygen levels, and accelerates gold and silver leaching. Engineered for your circuit's specific duty, SlamJet can operate with air, oxygen, SO₂, and other process gases.
oxygen concentration
How SlamJet Transforms Your Operation
Higher Production
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- Up to +2 ppm increase in dissolved oxygen, directly accelerating Au and Ag dissolution
- Demonstrated +2% Au and +6% Ag recovery uplift at industrial scale
- Faster pre-aeration and detox kinetics debottleneck production across the flowsheet
Lower Operating Cost
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- 15–50% reduction in oxygen consumption from higher transfer efficiency
- Up to 10% reduction in cyanide consumption — better sulfide passivation and improved DO
- Up to 8% reduction in detox reagent demand — reduces SMBS and oxygen in CN destruction
Safe, Online Service
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- Hot-tap online installation
and removal, with no
tank drain-out required - Fail-closed mechanism
prevents backflow,
plugging, and fouling - Fully degreased O₂-duty units
meet stringent oxygen
safety requirements
How the SlamJet Solves the Oxygen-Transfer Bottleneck
Transform oxygen injection performance through micro‑bubble generation and robust fail‑safe design
In gold and silver leaching, oxygen availability — not cyanide — is the rate-controlling factor. Conventional spargers generate 3–10 mm bubbles that rise quickly, dissolve poorly, and leave dead zones across the tank. SlamJet replaces this with a dense, uniform cloud of ~0.8 mm microbubbles that dramatically increases oxygen transfer efficiency, sustains elevated DO levels, and drives faster Au and Ag dissolution. The SlamJet works with air, oxygen, SO₂, or other gases as required, engineered to your circuit's specific duty.
Ultrafine Bubble Generation
Ultrafine Bubble Generation
SlamJet forces high-pressure gas through a converging nozzle, generating ~0.8 mm microbubbles, an order of magnitude smaller than the 3–10 mm bubbles from blower-based systems. Smaller bubbles provide dramatically more gas-liquid interfacial area, rise more slowly, and disperse more uniformly, increasing the rate at which oxygen dissolves into solution and sustaining elevated DO even in abrasive, high-solid slurries.
~0.8 mm Mean bubble diameter
vs. 3–10 mm for conventional systems
+2 ppm Dissolved oxygen increase
Demonstrated stable DO improvement at industrial scale
Solid Gas Dispersion & Distribution
Superior Gas Dispersion & Distribution
Multiple perimeter-mounted insertion points help distribute oxygen consistently across the tank volume, rather than the single injection point typical of under-agitator systems. This reduces dead zones, reduces bubble coalescence, and improves bulk mixings, increasing the transport of oxygen and cyanide to the mineral surface across the full working volume of the tank.
Multi-point perimeter-mounted injection vs. single point injection beneath the agitator.
Zero dead zones with uniform O2 distribution across the full tank volume
Reliable, Fail-Safe Performance in Harsh Slurries
Reliable, Fail-Safe Performance in Harsh Slurries
The self adjusting, fail-closed internal mechanism seals the nozzle automatically if gas supply pressure drops below tank static head, preventing slurry backflow into the sparger body or gas lines. With no porous media to plug or foul, and a large-bore design built for abrasive, high-volume solids slurries, SlamJet can be installed, inspected, and serviced externally without draining the tank.
Online Installation and Servicing without tank drain-out or production stoppage
Zero Porous Media with no plugging or fouling in abrasive, high-solids slurries
Performance Across Every Stage of the Gold Flowsheet
Pre-Aeration
Oxidise Sulfide Minerals Before They Consume Your Cyanide
Reactive sulfide minerals such as pyrrhotite and marcasite consume both oxygen and cyanide during leaching, suppressing DO levels and increasing reagent demand. SlamJet dramatically accelerates pre-aeration kinetics by delivering higher DO concentrations and superior bubble distribution — reducing required residence time and lowering cyanide consumption downstream.
Cyanidation
Oxygen is the Rate-Limiting Factor in Gold Leaching
Gold and silver dissolution rates in industrial circuits are controlled by dissolved oxygen availability. SlamJet microbubbles increase the rate at which oxygen dissolves into the slurry, sustaining higher DO concentrations and directly accelerating Au and Ag dissolution — silver leaching is particularly amenable to this improvement due to slower dissolution rate.
Cyanide Destruction
Reduce Reagent Demand in Detoxification
INCO SO₂/Air and other oxygen-dependent detoxification processes rely on efficient oxygen transfer to maintain cyanide destruction kinetics and achieve compliance with WAD cyanide limits. SlamJet improves oxygen delivery in detox tanks — reducing neutralizing reagent and oxygen consumption while maintaining or improving CN destruction efficiency.
Proven Results Over Multiple Operations
Leaching - Mexico
Gold-Silver Leach Plant
Oxygen injection duty with 8 SlamJets
Leaching - South America
High-Altitude Gold-Silver Leach Circuit
Air duty at 3,800–4,200 m elevation
Cyanide Destruction - Central America
Detox Circuit Retrofit
Oxygen duty
Frequent plugging of the existing oxygen manifold caused inconsistent supply. After a 50-day paired t-test trial, SlamJets delivered a step change in recovery and cyanide efficiency — with permanent installation proceeding immediately.
+0.93% Au recovery increase
50-day statistical trial vs. legacy manifold system
-9.5% Cyanide consumption
Improved sulfide passivation and DO levels
$1.25 M Annual revenue uplift
Metallurgical improvement alone — CN savings not included.
Ref: Rios, Lopez and Yap (2024)
South America: Operating at high altitude with suppressed oxygen partial pressure, the circuit was constrained by low dissolved oxygen. SlamJets delivered measurable DO improvement and step-change recovery gains across both gold and silver.
+2.0% Au recovery increase
On-off trial, 4-day campaign, 3-hourly sampling
+6.0% Ag recovery increase
Most significant uplift due to inherently slower Ag kinetics
+1.81 ppm Dissolved oxygen increase
Range: +0.44 to +1.81 ppm across trial conditions
Installation proceeding on all leach tanks
Central America: Following the success of SlamJets in the leach circuit, the same plant trialled replacement of a plugging octagonal manifold in the detox tank. SlamJet installation outperformed all legacy configurations on reagent efficiency.
-8% Neutralizing reagent consumption
SlamJet vs. octagonal manifold
-4 to 15% Oxygen consumption
Combined savings across all trial phases
$375K Annual savings
Reagent and oxygen cost reduction — permanent installation approved
Permanent SlamJet installation approved
Now Available: CavTube for Leaching Applications
The same high-shear cavitation technology is available for gold and silver leaching
CavTube® uses high-shear hydrodynamic cavitation to generate smaller bubbles and more intimate gas-liquid contacting than conventional sparging — improving dissolved oxygen levels and agitation in the leach tank, with no porous media to plug or foul.
In flotation, this mechanism has driven measurable gains in fine-particle recovery in hundreds of installations worldwide. CavTube can be installed as part of the leach tank assembly — either as an injector on a tank recycle stream, or with leach feed routed through the injector and slurry discharged into the tank.
Brochures & Technical Papers
SlamJet Spargers - The Sparging Factor - Improving the operating efficiency of flotation columns, leach tanks and other processes that depend on the generation of fine gas bubbles.
Sparging Systems for Leaching - Eriez SlamJets for leaching applications have many benefits over traditional methods of injecting gas to achieve desired dissolved oxygen levels in leach circuits.
The SlamJet Sparging System Is The Most Cost Effective Injection System For Leaching Processes - The SlamJet gas sparging system has proven to be highly effective in producing the optimally sized bubbles required for maximising oxygen mass transfer rates.