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I've been given the opportunity to acquire a gold deposit that has had some testwork for heap leaching done with decent recovery.
Digging through the historical papers though I've found that the only problem is that it contains a high amount of clay ( kaolinite ) and will definitely require agglomeration.
The testwork indicated that a sample crushed down to 12.5mm required 20kg/t cement but then had a decent percolation rate, however doing some more online research I read that kaolinite can break down in high pH solutions required for cyanide leaching.
Does anyone have any experience in heap leaching high clay ores? It's decent grade and plenty of it there so even if I got a 50% recovery rate I'd be happy, or is this going to just be a nightmare that I'd be better off walking away from