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Innovations in Gold and Silver Processing

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Innovative Process Development in Metallurgical Industry

Abstract

There are several challenges confronting the gold mining industry. One of the key challenges is the trend of increasing complexity of gold deposits with decreasing gold grades and gold-to-sulfur ratios along with higher proportions of carbonaceous matter, arsenic, copper-bearing minerals, and deleterious elements such as mercury. Many of these deposits are economically marginal as the capital and operating cost requirements are relatively high and the metal recoveries are suboptimal in addition to the need to address various environmental issues associated with these deposits. A holistic approach to innovation in mining and processing, that challenges the existing mining paradigm, is becoming more important.

This chapter reviews some of the major innovations and developments in different areas of gold and silver processing that have made a major impact in the gold industry. The areas of focus for this chapter are ore body knowledge (gold mineralogy), comminution, pre-concentration and ore beneficiation, cyanidation, oxidative pretreatment, heap leaching and alternative leaching technologies. Commercial application of Barrick’s new thiosulfate technology will be briefly discussed. In addition, innovations and technology developments that have the potential to shape the future of gold and silver processing are also presented.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank various mining companies, centers of excellence, commercial laboratories, engineering companies, equipment vendors, reagent suppliers and consultants for their support, discussion, partnerships and collaboration in various projects over many years. The authors would also like to thank colleagues at Barrick Gold Corporation in corporate, region and operations for discussion on various matters presented in this chapter.

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  1. Barrick Gold Corporation, 161 Bay Street, Suite 3700, Toronto, ON, Canada, M5J 2S1

    B. K. Gorain & Peter D. Kondos

  2. Process Research Ortech Inc., 2350 Sheridan Park Drive, Mississauga, ON, Canada, L5K 2T4

    V. I. Lakshmanan

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  1. B. K. Gorain
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Correspondence to B. K. Gorain .

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  1. Process Research Ortech Inc., Mississauga, Ontario, Canada

    Vaikuntam Iyer Lakshmanan

  2. Process Research Ortech, Inc., Mississauga, Ontario, Canada

    Raja Roy

  3. RAM Consultants, Scottsdale, Arizona, USA

    V. Ramachandran

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Gorain, B.K., Kondos, P.D., Lakshmanan, V.I. (2016). Innovations in Gold and Silver Processing. In: Lakshmanan, V., Roy, R., Ramachandran, V. (eds) Innovative Process Development in Metallurgical Industry. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21599-0_20

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