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The use of a high lime concentration is very important to produce a high calaverite
leaching rate. Fig. 3 illustrates the dissolution of synthesized calaverite powder
at two different concentration of lime i.e. 120 ppm CaO (pH 11.5) and 800 ppm CaO
(pH > 12.5). Other leaching conditions were: 8 ppm O2, 500 ppm NaCN, 500 g/t lead
nitrate. Only 60% gold was dissolved in 48 h at pH 11.5 while all the gold was
leached wit 800 ppm lime.
SEM examination of two leached sulphide concentrate samples indicated that the
majority of remaining un-leached gold in the residues occurred as tellurides being
primarily encapsulated within pyrite, indicating that all leachable gold inclusive
of the gold-telluride compounds had been successfully leached. The refractoriness
of tellurides had been effectively mitigated by the applied leach conditions and
despite the high lime conditions, it also confirmed the requirement to provide
further liberation in order to increase recovery.
Because the leaching of the sulphide concentrate at a grind of 21 lm was sub-
optimal, it was decided to direct further efforts in the improvement of leaching
the fine sulphide products (slimes and UFG) of the plant. The addition of lead
nitrate, to the leaching of the site UFG somewhat improved the leaching rate.
However, the improvement of the gold leaching kinetics is not significant with only
an increase of 4% in 6 h for the leach kinetics as indicated in Fig. 10.
The results in the current research have demonstrated that dissolution of telluride
can take place in copper ammoniacal thiosulfate solutions, but clearly dissolution
of coarse gold tellurides is slow.
PROCESSING TECHNOLOGIES FOR GOLD-TELLURIDE ORES
JIAN ZHANG1), YAO ZHANG1), WILLIAM RICHMOND2), AND HAI-PENG WANG1)
The utilization of lead salts is beneficial for the removal of polysulfides. It is
believed that lead nitrate can react with gold to produce AuPb2, AuPb3, and
metallic lead. This dramatically speeds up the gold dissolution in a cyanide
solution.
The effects of lime concentr