SlamJet Spargers in Gold Processing
Recover More Gold & Silver
In gold leaching, oxygen transfer can bottleneck plant performance. Conventioal sparging systems often produce coarse, fast-rising bubbles that reduce dissolved oxygen (DO) levels and slow down kinetics that drive recovery. This can result in higher reagent consumption and missed production potential.
Remove the Oxygen Transfer Bottleneck
With engineered ultrafine bubble generation, SlamJet produces the highest oxygen transfer efficiency in the industry — delivering a dense, uniform cloud of microbubbles that dramatically increases gas-liquid contact and sustains elevated dissolved oxygen levels. This increases DO concentration by 2 ppm, even in abrasive, slurries with high viscosity or a high level of solids. This means faster gold and silver dissolution, higher recoveries of up to +2% Au and +6% Ag, stronger early stage kinetics, and lower OPEX.
SlamJet is engineered for industrial uptime. Its failsafe, plug-resistant design performs reliably for years, and it can be installed or serviced online, without stopping production or requiring tank drainouts. The result is more throughput with less downtime, avoiding and a clear step change in metallurgical performance across pre-aeration, cyanidation, and detox circuits.
For higher production and lower cost per ounce, SlamJet delivers the most powerful and reliable oxygen injection technology available in the precious metals industry today.
Challenges for Oxygen‑Limited Hydrometallurgy
In gold and silver processing, extraction depends on oxygen across three critical stages
Pre-Aeration
Gold ores commonly contain reactive sulfide minerals (e.g., pyrrhotite) that consume oxygen and cyanide in the leach circuit. Pre-aeration oxidizes these sulfides, but its effectiveness is often limited by low DO levels, coarse bubbles that dissolve too slowly, and inadequate oxygen distribution in viscous, highly-solid pulps.
Poor pre-aeration leads to excessive cyanide consumption and suppressed leach kinetics downstream.
Cyanidation
Gold and silver dissolution rates in industrial processes are controlled by dissolved oxygen availability, not cyanide concentration. Oxygen limitations are amplified by high-solid slurry viscosity, fine grind requirements, cyanicide minerals rapidly consuming DO, and low atmospheric oxygen solubility, especially at high altitudes.
Most leach tanks cannot maintain DO above 5–10 ppm — far below what is required for optimal leach kinetics. Silver dissolution rates are approximately half that of gold, making silver extraction extremely sensitive to oxygen mass transfer performance.
Cyanide Destruction
Detoxification processes such as INCO SO₂/Air rely on oxygen-driven oxidation. Insufficient oxygen transfer causes longer residence time, higher SO₂/SMBS consumption, and compliance risks due to WAD cyanide variability
Across all three stages, oxygen mass transfer — not reaction chemistry — sets the performance ceiling. Conventional sparging systems simply cannot deliver the fine bubbles, dispersion, or reliability needed to sustain optimum DO levels.
How the SlamJet Solves the Oxygen-Transfer Bottleneck
The SlamJet sparger transforms oxygen injection performance through high‑pressure, high‑shear micro‑bubble generation and robust fail‑safe design.
UltraFine Bubble Generation
SlamJet creates a dense plume of ~0.8 mm microbubbles — an order of magnitude smaller than typical 3–10 mm bubbles from blower-based systems. This dramatically increases gas-liquid interfacial area, bubble residence time, oxygen dissolution rate, and DO uniformity across the tank.
The result is significantly faster Au and Ag dissolution in leaching and improved preaeration and detox kinetics.
Superior Gas Dispersion
Multiple perimeter-mounted insertion points help distribute oxygen consistently across the tank volume. This reduces dead zones and supports stronger slurry mixing and solids suspension. This improved gas distribution results in more even oxygen delivery, reduced bubble coalescence, better overall tank utilisation, a lower agitator load, and reduced mechanical wear.
FailSafe Reliability in Harsh Slurries
The selfadjusting, failclosed internal mechanism prevents slurry backflow, eliminates plugging and fouling, allows full online installation and maintenance (no tank drain-out), and ensures long-term stable performance in abrasive, highsolids conditions.
With no porous media and no internal components exposed to slurry, SlamJet delivers consistent bubble size and uptime unmatched by conventional spargers.
Downloadable Documents
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 may be used to raise DO levels in the leach or adsorption tanks. Millions of micro bubbles produced by the spargers ensure rapid transfer of oxygen to the pulp. The SlamJet gas sparging system has proven to be highly effective in producing the optimally sized bubbles required for maximising oxygen mass transfer rates.