How Gold Wash Plants Work

The Gold Recovery Process

Gold wash plants use a combination of water, gravity, and mechanical action to separate gold from raw placer material. Here's how the process works from start to finish:

Step 1: Feeding

Raw material (gravel, sand, clay) is loaded into the wash plant's hopper using an excavator or loader. Our plants accept material with rocks up to 24 inches in diameter — the built-in grizzly bars reject oversized material before it enters the system.

Step 2: Scrubbing & Breaking

High-pressure water jets break apart clay, consolidated gravels, and cemented material. This scrubbing action is critical — gold particles trapped in clay must be freed before they can be captured. Our design provides aggressive scrubbing action that outperforms competitors.

Step 3: Classification

The screen system classifies material by size. Oversized rocks and cobbles are rejected, while gold-bearing fines pass through and onto the sluice box. This classification step ensures only properly-sized material reaches the recovery system.

Step 4: Gravity Separation

The heart of the system — our engineered sluice box. Gold is 19.3 times heavier than water, so it sinks into the riffles while lighter material washes away. Our scientifically-designed riffle pattern creates turbulent zones that trap gold particles down to 200 mesh (0.075mm).

Step 5: Gold Collection

After a processing run, the sluice is cleaned up. Concentrated gold is collected from the riffle mats and can be further refined using a gold wheel, blue bowl, or panning. Most operators clean up once per shift or once per day.

Why 95-98% Recovery?

Our recovery rates are among the highest in the industry because of three key design elements:

• Aggressive scrubbing: Clay-bound gold is freed before it reaches the sluice
• Proper classification: Only correctly-sized material enters the recovery zone
• Engineered riffles: Scientifically-designed turbulence zones trap even fine gold

Setup & Operation

Our wash plants are designed for simplicity. Setup takes about 30 minutes on the smaller plants and around an hour on the largest — level the plant, connect your water source, and start feeding material. No special training required. One operator can run the entire system.

That process is the same on every machine we build. If you want to see the range rather than the method, our gold wash plants are listed by capacity, or view the equipment lineup and get a free quote for your operation.