Jul 18 2016
Itronics Inc., a growing and diversified fertilizer, silver, and minerals producer, today announced that it has started a full scale silver refining campaign to produce commercially saleable silver bullion from a mixture of its internally generated silver concentrates and e-scrap.
An important objective of this campaign is to obtain measurement data related to recovery of copper, gold and palladium from e-scrap and the composition of the bullion that is produced. Silver bullion production will now continue and increase throughout the year.
Itronics has been processing silver-bearing photographic liquids and accumulating the silver-bearing solids since December 2013. The five times scale up of the leaching pilot plant is nearing completion, which will help maintain silver production going forward by processing the backlog of silver-bearing concentrates.
The Company is evaluating how much e-scrap can be processed with each melt and is expecting that it will be able to increase the amounts being processed as it gains operating experience. Itronics has an on-going supply arrangement with a Reno based computer repair and sales company to provide e-scrap and is entering into a second supply agreement with another Reno based computer repair and sales company.
"The timing of resuming silver refining is excellent for Itronics," said Dr. John Whitney, Itronics President. "Precious metals prices have been increasing with silver up 42 percent, gold 30 percent, and palladium 30 percent since January. The increase in gold and palladium prices is significantly increasing the profit potential of e-scrap recycling for the Company."