Effect of mechanical activation on thiosulfate leaching of gold from complex sulfide concentrate

The use of mechanical activation to enhance gold recovery from a CuPbZn complex sulfide concentrate was investigated. The effects of milling time, ball size, sample to ball ratio and milling speed on thiosulfate leaching were studied. Under optimum conditions of milling time 1 h, ball size 20 mm, sample to ball ratio 1/15 and mill speed 600 r/min, nearly 78% of sample is amorphized, particle size decreases from d100=30 μm to d100=8 μm, specific surface area increases from 1.3 m2/g to 4.6 m2/g and gold recovery enhances from 17.4 % in non-activated sample to 73.26 %.

Pretreatment and thiosulfate leaching of refractory gold-bearing arsenosulfide concentrates

A hydrometallurgical process for refractory gold-bearing arsenosulfide concentrates at ambient temperature and pressure was presented, including fine grinding with intensified alkali-leaching （FGIAL）, enhanced agitation alkali-leaching （EAAL）, thiosulfate leaching and displacement. Experimental results on a refractory gold concentrate showed that the total consumption of NaOH in alkaline leaching is only 41% of those theoretically calculated under the conditions of full oxidization for the same amount of arse- nides and sulfides transformed into arsenates and sulfates, and 72.3% of gold is synchro-dissoluted by thiosulfate self-generated during alkaline leaching. After alkaline leaching, thiosulfate leaching was carried out for 24 h. The dissolution of gold is increased to 91.9% from 4.6% by cyanide without the pretreatment. The displacement of gold by zinc powder in the solution gets to 99.2%. Due to an amount of thiosulfate self-generated during alkaline leaching, the reagent addition in thiosulfate leaching afterwards is lower than the normal.

Treatment of a Polysulphide Ore by Ammoniacal Thiosulfate Solutions and Ion Flotation for Gold Recovery

Ammoniacal thiosulfate solutions with cupric ions have proved to be more successful than cyanidation in handling complex ores like carbonaceous and cuprous minerals. That＇s why cyanidation and ammoniacal thiosulfate leaching was performed at 33% of solids concentration in order to compare the efficiency of both techniques. Cyanidation delivered a gold recovery of 80.6% at 24 hours of agitation, whereas ammoniacal thiosulfate leaching achieved an 80.9% of gold recovery in only one hour of agitation. Then, the ammoniacal thiosulfate solutions obtained were submitted to five gold recovery techniques （carbon adsorption, cementation, adsorption on carbon impregnated with metallic copper, ion flotation and electrolysis） in order to determine which one of them was the most effective technique. Ion flotation proved to be the best technique due to its gold recovery of 84%. In addition, this technique only required trioctyl methyl ammonium chloride （Aliquat） and FloMin F-121 in a 0.1% concentration inside the solution. The small amounts of the flotation reagents allow the flotation concentrate to be treated by electrolysis. It was performed with 1.5 V during three hours and the resulting gold recovery was 82% in the cathode zone.

Role of oxygen and ammonium ions in silver leaching with thiosulfate–ammonia–cupric ions

The dissolution of silver with thiosulfate and copper ions was studied in a batch-stirred reactor at 25 °C in the absence and presence of various ammonium ions and oxygen concentrations in the aqueous solution. Leaching silver with 4 mg L-1oxygen in the aqueous solution requires high concentration of ammonium and thiosulfate ions. High silver dissolution is achieved at pH of high cupric tetraamine concentration, around pH 9.8, but a high degradation of thiosulfate ions is resulted from their oxidation by the presence of oxygen. When the oxygen concentration is below 1 mg L-1, dissolved silver thiosulfate species are fairly stable and the degradation of thiosulfate ions in the aqueous solution is low. Under these conditions,high silver dissolution is attained using low thiosulfate concentration. At the oxygen concentration of 4 mg L-1,dissolved silver thiosulfate species precipitate out of the aqueous solution significantly affecting silver dissolution.Precipitation of dissolved silver thiosulfate species occurs because of oxidation of the thiosulfate bonding to the silver.