Spent Alumina Regeneration
Regeneration of the spent alumina was accomplished by using 0.25% NaOH and 0.5% NaOH. Figure 11 shows the release of selenium, silica, and aluminum when regenerating the adsorption columns that had received the mine leachate. In this case, the regeneration was performed in an upflow mode using 30% bed expansion. As expected, the losses of […]
Bioleaching Test Procedure
Pulps of 20% solids is prepared from -200 mesh pyrite concentrate (after froth flotation), and is inoculated with 5% (V/V) of adapted bacterial solution. The bioleaching tests is carried out in 250 ml Erlenmayer flasks, each contained about 220 ml pulp. The pulps is aerated with air bubbling at one liter per minute air flow […]
Heap Leaching in Cold Weather & Winter
Extended freezing conditions exist in many parts of the world in the winter because of latitude or high altitude or both. Such conditions, coupled with the sprinkling techniques commonly used in heap leaching, result in formation of layers of ice which inhibit leaching by tying up solution inventory on heap surfaces and shutting off solution […]
Heap Leach Feed Preparation
Some gold and silver ores are difficult to successfully heap leach because of the high percentage of clay, and/or fines which are intrinsic in the material or generated by the crushing or ore preparation. This type of ore can result in extremely slow percolation during heap leaching. Channeling can result which promotes dry areas within […]
Heap Leaching at Altitude
It is feasible to conduct cyanide heap leaching at high altitudes as has been demonstrated by a number of pilot and commercial operations in the altiplano of the Andes Mountains. Operations at elevations in excess of 3000 meters (9800 ft) must be conducted with care to insure that heaps are fully permeable and the lixiviant […]
Heap Leaching with Sea Water
There are locations on the west coast of South America, in Australia, and in the California internal desert where fresh water is practically unavailable. It has been found that precious metal dissolution can be accomplished in sea water or in strong brine provided the leaching environment is adjusted to compensate for the buffering characteristics of […]
Bioleaching Carbonaceous Gold Ores
The previous tests demonstrated the use of facultative and extreme thermophiles for refractory sulfide gold ores and flotation concentrates. The following tests were conducted on carbonaceous gold ores to evaluate response to bioleaching. Facultative Thermophile Bioleaching of Carbonaceous Gold Ore The facultative thermophile S1I was used to pretreat a carbonaceous gold ore under CSTR conditions. […]
Cyclic Voltammetry
A few representative cycles from the first 20 oxidation/reduction cycles for a pyrite electrode in 0.1 M sodium borate are presented in Figure 3. The first scan was made in the cathodic direction starting from the rest potential of the mineral which typically had a value of 0.18 V. The large reduction peak observed in […]
Pyrite Buffer in Soil
The Gunnison, Colorado, tailings provide an example of the chemical reactions across the interface with soils rich in pyrite but low in calcite. In this case, the retardation of trace components is determined primarily from the Eh controls and less from the pH (Johnson, 1985). The compositions of groundwater from wells in the vicinity of […]
Magnesioferrite
In the case of pellets it was observed that incremental additions of olivine to any of a series of pellet concentrates invariably caused the pellets to become progressively more ferromagnetic after induration. At first, it was assumed that what little magnesioferrite formed in such pellets stabilized magnetite, a comparable spinel structure, in solid solution. However […]