Effects of pretreatment and leaching medium on the extraction efficiency of Au and Ag from a chalcopyrite leaching by-product

Abstract

Precious metals such as gold (Au) and silver (Ag) are essential to our modern society due to their unique properties, such as high conductivity and physical and chemical resistance. They are teofn concentrated in by-products during the extraction of base metals. In the present work, a chalcopyrite leaching residue, constituted mainly of elemental sulfur and jarosites, was subjected to different pretreatments and leached with different leaching media to recover Au and Ag. The solid residue was pretreated by desulfurization,peroxidation,desulfurization+peroxidation and leached with cyanide, cyanide+glycine, and glycine. For comparison, samples without pretreatment were also leached using the same leaching media. Changes in the mineralogical species were followed to explain the effects of pretreatment and leaching medium on the dissolution of Au and Ag. Results indicate that the highest extraction of gold and silver (Au:99.50%, Ag:46.71%) is achieved by using a combined desulfurization+peroxidation pretreatment and cyanide as leaching medium.