Developments in Gold Leaching: A Literature Survey

The gold industry has seen intense activity in the areas of exploration and metallurgy'in recent years. Many developments have taken piace through which ore bodies that were once considered uneconomical to exploit are becoming economical grade. Even the traditional cyanidation process has been modified during the course of time to make it more economical and efficient. Developments such as heap leaching, in-situ leaching, carbon-in-pulp (CIP), carbon-in-leach (CIL) resin-in-pulp (RIP), and pretreatment of refractory ores have already made an impact on gold industries. Research and development work is also being carried out on less toxic, more efficient lixiviants which may eventually replace the toxic cyanide, solving the disposal problem currently facing the industry. This paper aims at summarizing the developments in the extraction of gold using conventional, as well as unconventional, lixiviants. Some developments in the area of gold recovery from pregnant solutions have also been briefly discussed.

[1]  J. Yannopoulos.  Treatment of Refractory Gold Ores , 1991 .

[2]  K. R. Suttill.  Pyromet or hydromet , 1990 .

[3]  P. W. Preisler,et al.  Oxidation-Reduction Potentials of Thiol-Dithio Systems: Thiourea-Formamidine Disulfide1 , 1947 .

[4]  B. A. Wills.  XVI international mineral processing congress , 1988 .

[5]  J. Eisele.  Gold Metallurgy—A Historical Perspective , 1988 .

[6]  D. Muir,et al.  Solvent elution of gold from C.I.P. carbon , 1985 .

[7]  T. Groenewald.  The dissolution of gold in acidic solutions of thiourea , 1976 .

[8]  J. Hiskey.  Thiourea Leaching of Gold and Silver — Technology Update and Additional Applications , 1984 .

[9]  Reinhold G. Schulze,et al.  New Aspects in Thiourea Leaching of Precious Metals , 1984 .

[10]  J. L. Huiatt,et al.  Ferric Chloride, Thiourea and Brine Leach Recovery of Ag, Au and Pb from Complex Sulfides , 1986 .

[11]  Reichardt.  Zeitschrift für Analytische Chemie , 1886 .

[12]  V. Kudryk,et al.  Precious metals : mining, extraction, and processing , 1984 .

[13]  A. Bradley,et al.  Precious Metals, 1983 , 1984 .

[14]  K. E. Haque.  Gold Leaching from Refractory Ores—Literature Survey , 1987 .

[15]  P. Sorensen.  Gold recovery from carbon-in-pulp eluates by precipitation with a mineral acid I. Precipitation of gold in eluates contaminated with base metals , 1988 .

[16]  K. R. Suttill.  São Bento plans biox , 1990 .

[17]  R. Williams,et al.  Journal of American Chemical Society , 1979 .

[18]  M. C. Jha.  Refractoriness of Certain Gold OrestoCyanidation: Probable Causes and Possible Solutions , 1987 .

[19]  C. Wan,et al.  A study of the leaching of gold and silver by acidothioureation , 1980 .

[20]  Edward Ghali,et al.  Leaching of gold from a chalcopyrite concentrate by thiourea , 1988 .

[21]  J Brent Hiskey,et al.  Dissolution Chemistry of Gold and Silver in Different Lixiviants , 1988 .

[22]  L. White.  Uranium mining is alive and well in France , 1986 .

[23]  A. Dadgar.  Refractory concentrate gold leaching: Cyanide vs. bromine , 1989 .

[24]  E. Becker,et al.  Gold recovery from non-metallic secondary raw materials by leaching with thiourea and adsorption on ion exchangers , 1983 .