Bartolomé de Medina (born 1528, Medina de Ríoseco, Spain—died 1580, Salamanca) Spanish Dominican theologian who developed the patio process for extracting silver …

These articles analyse the volume and pattern of production and the forms of labour found in mining. Particular attention is given to the technologies of extraction and refining, notably the adoption of the mercury amalgamation process: this had a major impact, driving down silver production costs; because the mercury mines were a royal ...

Many months had passed since he had successfully amalgamated silver ore with mercury and had named his revolutionary new method the patio process. The …

Prior to the introduction of the patio process to the Andes in the 1570s, silver was extracted from ore through smelting. This occurred using indigenous technology called huayrachinas (wind or draft furnaces) and tocochimbos (cupellation hearths). Huayrachinas were used to heat pulverized silver ore, which was mixed with a lead sulfide. Upon ...

During the patio process, silver ore was finely crushed and mixed with salt, water, copper sulfate, and mercury. This mixture was spread in a one to two foot layer in an outdoor patio. After weeks of mixing and sun exposure, the native silver in the ore would bind with the mercury to form an amalgam. After that, pure silver could be extracted ...

These early technologies were rendered instantly obsolete, and the whole Spanish-American mining industry took a quantum leap forward, in 1554 with the advent of the "patio process" for the amal-gamation of silver ores. As already mentioned, it is Bartolome de Medina who is generally credited with having pioneered the process.

The patio process was a process used to extract silver ore. It was developed by Bartolomé Medina in Pachuca, Hidalgo, Mexico in 1557 for the Pachuca-Real del Monte mines. The patio process was the first process to use mercury amalgamation to recover silver from ore. Other amalgamation processes were later developed, most importantly …

The development of the patio amalgamation process into an industrial scale operation in 1554 stimulated the massive production of silver in the New World but left behind an unprecedented quantity of mercury pollution. The annual loss of mercury in the silver mines of Spanish America averaged 612 tonnes/year (range 292–1085 …

Working near the mines of Pachuca, not far from Mexico City, Medina adapted a method he apparently learned of in Spain from visiting Germans. In 1554, he developed what later became known as the patio process, an open-air system of beneficiation that mixed finely ground silver ore with mercury and other reagents. These were stirred periodically ...

The patio process is a process for extracting silver from ore. Smelting, or refining, is most often necessary because silver is only infrequently found as a native element like some metals nobler than the redox couple 2 H + + 2 e − ⇌ H 2 (gold, mercury, ...).Instead, it is made up of a larger ore body. Thus, smelting, or refining, is necessary to reduce the …

Patio process, method of isolating silver from its ore that was used from the 16th to early in the 20th century; the process was apparently commonly used by Indians in America before the arrival of the Europeans. The silver ore was crushed and ground by mule …

The Spanish discovery of the cinnabar deposit at Huancavelica, Peru around 1560 proved vital for the prosperity of silver mining in the New World because the "patio process" for the amalgamation of silver ores (invented in Pachuca by Bartholome Medina in 1554 and used widely in the New World thereafter; see later) required mercury.

Mining Methods - Notes on the Patio Process of silver amalgamation and smelting. Scope and Content From the Collection: Collection consists of the research files of Lucien A. File. Included are research documents, index cards, maps, black and white photographs, and an unfinished manuscript pertaining to mining in New Mexico.

Silver (Ag), like gold, crystallizes in the face-centred cubic system. It melts when heated to 962° C (1,764° F). With a density of 10.49 grams per cubic centimeter, it is the lightest of the precious metals. It is also the least noble of the precious metals, reacting readily with many common reagents such as nitric acid and sulfuric acid.

patio process: [noun] an amalgamation process of reducing silver ore in which ore crushed to pulp is spread on the patio and mixed with salt, copper sulfate, and mercury by spading the mass and driving horses or mules through it.

Lead ores containing silver are extracted by cupellation, a process developed by the Chaldeans as early as 2,500 B.C. Today, the cupellation process involves heating crushed ore on a porous bed of bone ash until it melts. The lead and other impurities are absorbed into the bone ash, and the molten silver is drawn off.

Mercury has been used m gold and silver mining since Roman times. With the invention of the "patio" process in Spanish colonial America, silver and gold were produced in large scale, mostly in the Americas but also in Australia, Southeast Asia and even m England. Mercury released to the biosphere due to this activity may have …

Mercury has been used m gold and silver mining since Roman times. With the invention of the "patio" process in Spanish colonial America, silver and gold were produced in large scale, mostly in the Americas but also in Australia, Southeast Asia and even m England. Mercury released to the biosphere due to this activity may have reached over 260,000 t …

It is important to mention that the amalgamation process was applied exclusively to silver ores free of lead; therefore smelting was continuously used all over New Spain for low-scale mining, and ...

The Patio Process. By the end of the 16th century, most high-quality silver ore had been mined out of the region. The Spanish had to find new ways to extract silver from the lower-quality ore left behind. In AD 1554, a new technique called the patio process was developed, which used large amounts of mercury to extract silver from the low ...

The process is attributed to a mining specialist – Bartolomé de Medina who was the first to use a silver amalgamation with mercury to extract silver. De Medina' s technique involved mixing the ore with mercury and strong brine. This formed a mercury silver amalgam from which semi-pure silver could be obtained by distilling off the mercury.

Mercury has been used in gold and silver mining since Roman times. With the invention of the "patio" process in Spanish colonial America, silver and gold were produced in large scale, mostly in the Americas but also in Australia, Southeast Asia and even in England. Mercury released to the biosphere due to this activity may have reached over 260,000 t …

Chapter 3 tells the story of global mercury cycling in both society and the environment, and how those two processes must be examined together. We begin the chapter by introducing the history of silver amalgamation. In 1554, the Spanish merchant Bartolomé de Medina developed the patio process, which uses mercury in the process …

During the sixteenth century the population of Potosi grew to over 200,000 and its silver mine became the source of 60% of the world's silver. ... dramatic rise in Spanish American silver production in the 1570's was the result of the adoption at Potosi of the "patio" process of amalgamation of silver ores with mercury which produced a ...

During the patio process, silver ore was finely crushed and mixed with salt, water, copper sulfate, and mercury. This mixture was spread in a one to two foot layer …

The development of the patio amalgamation process into an industrial scale operation in 1554 stimulated the massive production of silver in the New World but left behind an unprecedented quantity of mercury pollution. The annual loss of mercury in the silver mines of Spanish America averaged 612 tonnes/year (range 292–1085 …

The patio process and its various adaptations made it possible for large amounts of ores containing as low as 15 oz silver per tonne Of ore to be extracted profitably, a …

Thus, for 320 years, from 1570 to 1900, 1000 0 when the patio process was in common use, the k~ o. 800 discharge of mercury from silver mining in South E and Central America averaged 612 tonnes/year t- …