Unlocking refractory gold ores and concentrates

Abstract

The successful treatment of gold and silver ores is always a matter of economics, but it is not always a matter of grade, or metal content. Although the photograph accompanying this article depicts the notion that the scale of gold recovery is increasingly disproportionate to the amount of earth that must be processed, the economics of gold production nonetheless provide incentives attractive enough to justify greater investment in the development of effective treatments for refractory gold ores and concentrates.