There are some gold deposits located in cold places such as Alaska and the design of the processing plant must be done considering the environmental conditions, otherwise, the project will have to face unexpected problems during the operation. It is well known that many gold deposits in the States are located in remote northern areas with extreme low temperatures in the range of -10 to -40 oC. This a common characteristic in some places in Canada too. Basically, places with cold climates and snowfalls are sometimes a challenge and most facilities must be installed in one building. For this reason fine ore bin, grinding, cyanidation, flotation thickening, filtration, smelting and offices are under roof.
In this way it is possible it is possible to control the activities of the personnel form one section to another, the number of personnel is optimum, the heating system is used with better efficiency, there are few problems associated to snow and operation, and the slurry is free of frozen conditions. Try to locate operation in one building is the optimum condition, but when this condition is not possible, two building is other option. All these considerations have an impact on the gold recovery process and the investment needed to develop the project. The plan outline of a plant building is influenced by the distribution of the process equipment according to the metallurgical needed to recover gold. The nature of equipment placed in any building, the height and cross section are determined by the crane height needed for equipment maintenance and the design of the crane.
For example, if the process involved grinding and flotation, the roof is inclined with a step at the grinding section. The height to the top of the crane clearance is the same in grinding and flotation. Regarding the building volume and roof areas, the wall area and roof area are greater for inclined roof and the costs of wall and roof cladding and the heating costs must be studied carefully due for a large gold concentrator in a cold location, the largest part of the heating load is needed to heat the air in the building. It is important to mention that some places do not accept any reduction in snow load until roof slopes reach approximately 30o. In this case, there is not reduction in the structure needed for an inclined roof under uniform snow.
Processing Plant in one building