Leaching of gold-containing ores with application of oxidation activators

Abstract

The Article presents the results of studies conducted to process gold-bearing rocks from one of the fields in Kazakhstan. We studied the phase chemical and mineral composition of the ore using semi-quantitative X-ray fluorescent, chemical (assay), electron raster and rational (phase) analyzes. Wefound that the test sample contained 1.4 g/t Au and 0.14 g/t Ag. The granulometric analysis showed that the main gold (36.51%) was concentrated in a class of -2.5 +1.25 mmsize, with 1.42 g/t gold content. The main components of the initial sample composition were quartz 38.9%, albite 20.3%, pyrite 5.8%. we studied thegravity recovery possibility of gold-bearing ore using laboratory equipment, i.e. Knelson KS-MD 3 centrifugal concentrator. We obtained a gold-containing concentrate with 6.04 g/t gold content on a centrifugal concentrator with extraction of 52.65%, and 0,82 g/t gold in gravity tailingsunder the one-stage recovery flow sheet. We determined the optimal leaching parameters for the recovery products (gravity concentrate and gravity tailings) using various oxidation activators. The gold recovery degree was 77.3%with direct gravity concentrate cyanidation, and 85.7%with preliminary oxidation using calcium hypochlorite increasing the gold recoverydegree by 8.4%, when leaching the gravity tailingsusing calcium hypochlorite -73.1%, sodium peroxide - 75.6%, Ascor oxidation activator (AS-45102) - 71.9%.