Hydrometallurgy: Leaching in Heap, Vat, CIL, CIP, Merrill–Crowe, SX Solvent Extraction

Hydrometallurgy: Leaching in Heap, Vat, CIL, CIP, Merrill–Crowe, SX Solvent Extraction

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ammonia pre treatment of copper-gold ore (4 replies and 2 comments)

s
simon@p
5 years ago
simon@p 5 years ago

hellow,

I have gold ore which contains high amount of copper. 

I have heard that apart from flotation I could use ammonia pre-treatment to reduce the amount of copper in the ore

I have bottle rolling test so I'm asking for the procedures to do the test to see the effectof addition of ammonia 

And does the copper dissolved in ammonia have any effect in carbon adsorption

Thanks

T
Todd H
5 years ago
Todd H 5 years ago
Like

How much copper is in the ore? How much gold do the copper minerals carry?  If you did flotation to remove the copper it is likely that a good portion of your gold is going with it. Smelters pay for gold in copper conc but with some deductions.

Ammonical leaching of copper works but then what?  You will need to do a solid-liquid separation and then figure out how to recover the copper.  Since no one does this commercially I would stay away from it - too messy and expensive.

 

Regards

Todd Harvey - Global Resource Engineering http://www.global-resource-eng.com

s
simon@p
5 years ago

there are 0.38% copper in the ore
what I want to do is to prevent adsorption of copper in the carbon in order to increase the final gold fineness

J
Jorge
5 years ago
Jorge 5 years ago
Like

Ammonia could be used as an additional reagent in cyanidation for copper-containing ore bodies. Most of the laboratory works evaluated the use of ammonia alone as a lixiviant for refractory gold ores at high temperatures. For example, copper-catalyzed ammoniacal thiosulfate-leaching system has been most extensively studied, specially for the system of carbonaceous ores and copper-gold ores, where gold recovery is poor when using cyanide or cyanide consumption is high. Capex and Opex have an impact on the process application.

s
simon@p
5 years ago

i have studied this document https://www.researchgate.net/publication/234111181_Treatment_of_a_Copper-Rich_Gold_Ore_by_Ammonia_Assisted_Cyanide_Leaching
but what I don't understand is the way the experiment was conducted
and if the dissolved copper ammonia have effect in adsorption

J
Jorge
5 years ago
Jorge 5 years ago
Like

First and foremost, it is important to mention that the copper extraction from covellite is higher than 90% when cyanide is used as leaching agent. The researches performed only leaching tests,

  • Direct leaching using only cyanide
  • Pre-treatment with ammonia ahead of cyanidation
  • Cyanidation with ammonia 
  • Adsorption tests were not evaluate
T
tesaygo1
5 years ago
tesaygo1 5 years ago
Like

Hello guys,

Last year i also tried this process buy haven't get a good result due to insuffiecent equipment, but somehow give me a idea how things suppose to be working.

 

Since you guys are working on it, maybe we can help each other do collaboration to achieve this process. 

We all know that leaching gold ore using cyanide with copper contaminates make it very expensive. If we can only apply this pre treatment procedure or make new procedure without disturbing the copper mineral in the ore is great. 

You can contact me in my email tesaygo@gmail.com

 

Let collaborate since we are have similar problem.

 

 

 


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