Technology to enhance gold recovery from double-refractory ores now available
A new technology to improve gold recovery in the processing of double-refractory ores, which often resulted in native carbon com- peting with activated carbon and limiting gold recovery (commonly called preg-robbing), was now available for commercial use, said biological oxidation (Biox) solutions provider Biomin process manager Craig van Buuren.
The process, called HiTeCC, was a conditioning stage introduced after conventional carbon-in-leach (CIL) processing to recover preg-robbed gold from native carbonaceous materials.
The process resulted from the collaboration between a Biox user and Biomin, and had reliably been shown to improve gold recovery, following the CIL process, by 5% to 10%. Biomin was working with the University of Pretoria to further the fundamental understanding of the HiTeCC process and allow it to be extensively modelled, Van Buuren added.
“In our tests on double-refractory concen- trates with a high native-carbon content, normal gold recoveries were severely impacted without the HiTeCC process,” he explained.
The process involved conditioning slurry post-CIL using heat, carbon and caustic reagents to reverse the preg-robbing effect. Gold was stripped off the native carbon and recaptured onto activated carbon through a two-stage temperature swing. The slurry heat exchanging process meant HiTeCC could be easily tied into conventional leach circuits.
Biomin noted that it had done significant work to improve the efficiency of the process for plants processing double refractory ores and would continue to develop the modelling to enable bespoke solutions for specific preg-robbing materials.
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