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Extraction 2018 pp 1697-1708 | Cite as

Effect of DO, Free Cyanide and Mineralogy on Gold Cyanidation Mechanism: An Electrochemical and Surface Analysis Study

  • Rina KimEmail author
  • Ahmad Ghahreman
  • Michel Epiney
Conference paper
First Online:
Part of the The Minerals, Metals & Materials Series book series (MMMS)

Abstract

There are many factors which affect the gold cyanidation mechanism—mineral composition, free cyanide and dissolved oxygen (DO) concentrations, heavy metal additions, etc. This study combines electrochemistry and surface analysis methods to examine the effectiveness of the above factors on gold cyanidation process. Three gold ore samples were used in this study. Sample 1 was a pyrite concentrate, contained mercury and silver. Sample 2 also contained sulfide minerals, including galena. Sample 3 contained pyrite with sphalerite and galena. In the case of samples 1 and 2, the presence of heavy metals enhanced gold cyanidation kinetics, though the addition of higher DO was not effective on improving the kinetics. Sample 3 showed an opposite behavior: the kinetics was not enhanced by galena, because of its relatively small amount, however, the use of higher DO made improvement in the gold leaching kinetics, likely caused by iron species generated by pyrite oxidation.

Keywords

Gold Cyanidation Dissolved oxygen Electrochemistry Sulfide mineral 
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Notes

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank MITACS (Ref. IT07117) and Air Liquide for the financial support of this study.

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Copyright information

© The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society 2018

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Queen’s UniversityKingstonCanada
  2. 2.Air Liquide CanadaMontrealCanada

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