Advanced hydrometallurgical techniques applicable to gold-copper and copper-gold ores. Рractices adopted abroad

Abstract

Currently, many foreign mining companies process gold ores containing considerable amounts of copper that is soluble in the cyanide process. When this process is used for processing of copper-gold ores, difficulties occur as copper minerals can behave differently when being dissolved. To stop copper cyanides from ending up in tailing dumps, techniques are employed that help break up these compounds. Combined with excessive consumption of cyanide when building compounds with copper, this can entail a significant cost. Hence, of economic and ecological relevance would be the processes that help generate copper as a byproduct of cyanidation while ensuring cyanide recovery. Such processes (they are partially adopted on a commercial scale) include SART/AVR, Activox, CESL, Dynatec, Albion, Biocop, Platsol, Intec, Vitrokele, Hydrocopper, as well as processes based on active carbon and ion exchange adsorption, liquid extraction and so on. This review examines and compares the above processes pointing out their advantages and drawbacks, as well as factors constraining their application. The review also looks at a number of separation techniques to separate copper and gold, copper and cyanide.