ICON History


environmental gold mining
Enhanced gravity concentration equipment has been in broad commercial use in precious metal processing for more than two decades. Until now, this technology has mostly been utilized by major mining companies on account of capital cost and maintenance requirements. About five years ago, Falcon Concentrators Inc. began to explore ways to service the artisanal (or informal) mining sector. Although this sector presently uses primitive mineral processing methods that lose fines gold particles, it still accounts for about 30% of the world’s gold production and currently employs more than 20,000,000 people worldwide. Processing the same materials using enhanced gravity concentration technology would greatly increase the production of gold by artisanal and small scale miners. Productivity can also be greatly increased using this technology. In other words, if an affordable and effective centrifugal concentrator was in wide use by artisanal and small scale miners, production from each tonne processed would increase as would the number of tonnes processed by each miner.
 
In the beginning, producing a simple, safe, high speed, reliable yet fully-featured concentrating machine that a group of artisanal miners could afford to purchase seemed impossible. In addition, maintenance of such a machine was thought to be beyond the grasp of this community. Falcon persevered through a series of prototypes, stripped the problem down to its bare essentials, and employed its 90+ man-years of centrifuge design experience to produce a 2 t/h concentrator that has all of the features of machines used by major mining companies. The artisanal concentrator or iCON includes variable speed, rapid concentrate removal and full control of fluidizing water injection yet consists of a single moving part and costs less than 5,500 USD.    

Here are some examples of how costs were minimized:
1.    The structure of the machine is an oil drum of the type available in every corner of the earth.
2.    Wear resistance is provided by used automobile tires.
3.    Ballast for stability is provided by the material being processed.
4.    A patented electric motor provides the drive means, fluidizing water delivery and rotor support in a single cost-effective package.
5.    Employment of high volume manufacturing techniques.

There is an interesting parallel between the iCON and personal computers. Whereas PC’s were only available to the wealthy few just twenty years ago, we are now hearing about a $100 PC that will be available to every school child in Africa….
 
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