TOMS Institute (Irkutsk, Russia)
A. E. Senchenko, CEO, Candidate of Engineering Sciences
A. V. Aksenov, Head of Laboratory of Metallurgy, Candidate of Engineering Sciences, aksenov@tomsmineral.ru
A. A. Vasilev, Leading Researcher, Candidate of Engineering Sciences
For over 130 years, the cyanidation process has been the pri mary method for extracting gold from ores and concentrates of primary deposits. However, applying this process to copperbearing ores is often associated with high sodium cyanide consumption. Reducing sodium cyanide consu mption is possible through the use of glycine-cyanide gold leaching. This article presents the results of research on the glycine-cyanide leaching process applied to ore containing 4 g/t of gold and 0.35% copper, in comparison with conventional cyanide and glycine leaching. It is shown that the use of glycine-cyanide leaching allows for a multiple reduction in sodium cyanide consumption compared to the standard cyanidation process while maintaining a similar gold recovery rate, and significantly increases gold recovery compared to glycine leaching. It is noted that during sorption glycine-cyanide leaching using activated carbon as a sorbent, problems may arise due to low gold recovery from the so lution caused by the sorbent becoming saturated with copper. To address this issue, it is proposed to conduct glycine-cyanide leaching without a sorbent, followed by washing the dissolved gold and its subsequent sorption from the solution onto activated carbon in columns (the CIC process). In this case, the efficiency of gold recovery from the solution is increased by adding sodium cyanide to the pregnant leach solution prior to the sorption process. The obtained research results demonstrate the practical feasibility of implementing glycine-cyanide leaching technology, which ensures high gold recovery, moderate reagent consumption, and does not require the use of special oxidizing agents.
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