• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.46 no.1
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• pp.21-28
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• 2013

In order to optimize gold leaching from refractory sulfide concentrate, a HCl-NaClO-$FeCl_3$ solution with varying attributes was applied to the roasted concentrate from Uil mine. The gold from Uil mine occurs in the form of invisible gold that is difficult to leach. The results of the gold leaching experiments showed that the best gold leaching parameters were $550^{\circ}C$ of roasting temperature, 2.0 M of concentration, 1.0% of pulp density, and $70^{\circ}C$ of leaching temperature. It is confirmed that the HCl-NaClO-$FeCl_3$ solution was an environmentally friendly method to leach gold and silver from the refractory sulfide concentrate as an alternative lixiviant to cyanide.

• Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
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• 2001.10a
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• pp.337-341
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• 2001

A new method to extract gold from pyrite roster cinder, which combines ultra-fine-grinding with resin-in-pulp, has been studied in this paper. Compared with traditional leaching technology, it can short leaching time, avoid complex filter process, lower sodium cyanide consumption and increase gold recovery by 35%. During leaching, aluminium oxide ball was used as stirred medium, hydrogen peroxide as leaching aid and sodium hexametaphosphate as grinding aid. With the high efficiency and chemistry effect of ultra-fine-grinding, the leaching process was developed and the gold leaching rate may reach 88%. With AM-2 Б resin as abosorber and sulfocarbamide (TU) as eluent, gold was recovered from cyanide pulp by resin-in-pulp. AM-2 Б resin has good adsorbability in cyanide solution(pH=10). It was easy to elude gold from the loaded resin with 0.1㏖/L cholhydric acid and 1㏖/L sulfocabamide. The effect of contact time, temperature and acidity etc. on the gold absorption had been examined with static methods. The results showed that the adsorption and desorption of gold could both reach over 98%. The effects of flow rate of solution on dynamic adsorption and elution of gold had been examined with dynamic methods. Breakthrough curve and elution curve had been drawn in this paper. A mild condition was determined through a number of experiments: leaching time 2 hours, liquid solid ratio 4:1, sodium cyanide 3kg/t, hydrogen peroxide 0.05%, sodium hexametaphosphate 0.05%; adsorption time 30 minutes, temperature 10-3$0^{\circ}C$, resin($m\ell$) solid(g) ratio 1:10, eluent resin ratio 10-20:1, velocity of eluent $1.5m\ell$/min. Under the mild condition, the gold recovery may reach 85%.

• Journal of the Mineralogical Society of Korea
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.113-126
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• 2019

This study aimed to effectively dissolve sulfide minerals through microwave-nitric acid leaching of invisible gold concentrate and then recover gold from the solid-residue with fire assay. For the purposes, this study conducted microwave-nitric acid leaching experiments to examine nitric acid concentration, time of microwave leaching, and sample addition effect. As results of the experiments, this study discovered that the weight loss rate of solid-residue increased as nitric acid concentration and microwave leaching time increased while weight loss rate decreased as sample addition increased. In an XRD analysis with solid-residue, it was discovered that pyrite completely disappeared when the nitric acid concentrate was 6 M and the microwave leaching time was 18 minutes. When a fire assay was carried out with solid-residue, gold particles with more content were recovered as nitric acid concentration and microwave leaching time increased whereas gold particles with more gold content were recovered as the sample addition decreased.

• Journal of the Mineralogical Society of Korea
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.185-200
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• 2019

This study aimed to liberate gold from invisible gold concentrate (Au = 1,840.00 g/t) through microwave nitric acid leaching experiments. For the purpose, this study conducted microwave-nitric acid leaching experiments and examined nitric acid concentration effect, microwave leaching time effect and sample addition effect. The results of the experiments were as follows: Au (gold) contents were not detected in all of the microwave leaching conditions. In the insoluble-residue, weight loss rate tended to decrease as the nitric acid concentration, microwave leaching time and sample addition increased. In an XRD analysis with solid-residue, it was suggested that gypsum and anglesite were formed due to dissolution of calcite and galena by nitric acid solution. When a fire assay was carried out with insoluble-residue, it was discovered that gold contents of the solid-residue were 1.3 (Au = 2,464.70 g/t) and 28.8 (52,952.80 g/t) times more than those of concentrate. But in the gold contents recovered, a severe gold nugget effect appeared. It is expected that the gold nugget effect will decrease if a sampling method of concentrate is improved in the microwave-nitric acid leaching experiments and filtering paper with smaller pore size is used for leaching solution and burned filter paper is used for sampling in lead-fire assay.

• Journal of the Mineralogical Society of Korea
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.123-130
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• 2012

Leaching experiments of gold and silver from roasted concentrate were carried out using a chlorine-hypochlorite solution. The leaching rate of gold was 75% at 1.5:1 ratio of chlorine and hypochlorite and increased to 81% with adding 1 M NaCl. However, at 1% pulp density and at $65^{\circ}C$, the leaching rates of Au were close to 100%. XRD analysis identified quartz in the solid residues after digestion of roasted concentrate with aqua regia or chlorine-hypochloride leaching solution. This suggests that the gold may not be leached out of the quartz in aqua regia or chlorine-hypochlorite solution. In order to leach the gold from the quartz, the concentrate will have to be pre-treated through ultra-fine grinding or treated with stronger oxidative agents.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.3-7
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• 2020

Recently, the gold leaching technologies draw much interest to recover gold from low grade ores. Current leaching processes mostly use cyanide as the leaching agent, due to its high leaching efficiencies and cost-effectiveness. However, use of cyanide is severely problematic, because of toxicity and thereby environmental risks, and requires strict regulations and environmental management. Especially, this issue becomes further apparent when cyanide should be applied for dump or heap leaching for low cost gold recovery along with recent trends. To resolve this issue, the alternative leaching processes using thiosulfate or halogen compounds, instead of cyanide, have been studied and developed but there have been lots of difficulties toward commercialization, and therefore further research should be conducted. The commercialization of dump or heap bioleaching technologies should be urgently required for effective direct biogenic gold recovery from low grade ores or tailings without use of cyanide.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.52 no.6
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• pp.595-604
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• 2019

The purpose of this study was simply to obtain gold through a microwave-nitric acid experiment of invisible gold concentrate with the use of filter paper. For the purpose, this study conducted a microwave-nitric acid leaching experiment and examined nitric acid concentration. As a result of the experiment, this study discovered that Fe, Te and Ag were completely leached in the leaching solution whereas Au was not determined in all of the nitric acid conditions. The leaching solution was filtered with three filter papers and then these filter papers were analyzed with SEM/EDS. As a result of the EDS analysis, Au was detected in all of the surface and cross-section of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd filter papers. As the three filter papers containing solid-residue were analysed in the lead-fire assay, gold particles were found in all of the nitric acid conditions. In the lead-fire assay, maximum gold(452.50g/t) was recovered when nitric acid concentration was 6M and microwave leaching time was 12mins.

• Journal of the Mineralogical Society of Korea
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.9-18
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• 2013

In order to optimize the gold leaching process from refractory sulfide concentrate, a chlorine-hypochlorite solution with varying concentrations and temperatures were applied to salt-roasted concentrate. The concentrate consisted of pyrite, chalcopyrite, and galena, which were turned into hematite through air-roasting at $750^{\circ}C$. Also these concentrates were changed into hematite and nantokite (CuCl)) through salt (NaCl)-roasting at $750^{\circ}C$. The results of the gold leaching experiments showed that the best gold leaching parameters were obtained when the hydrochloric acid-sodium hypochlorite mix was at a ratio of 1 : 2, the added concentration was 1.0 M concentration, the pulp density was 1.0%, and the leaching was done at a $60^{\circ}C$ leaching temperature. The leaching rate for gold was much greater in the roasted concentrate than in the raw concentrate. The leaching rate was greater in the salt-roasted concentrate than in the plain roasted concentrate too. From XRD analysis, quartz was found in the salt-roasted concentrate and in the solid residue from the chlorine-hypochlorite leaching solution at $60^{\circ}C$.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.53 no.2
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• pp.183-196
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• 2020

This study aimed to recover native gold from the concentrate using microwave-nitric acid leaching and magnetic/hydro separation experiments. The insoluble-residue was filtered from leaching solution through microwave-nitric acid leaching experiment. As a result of the atomic absorption spectrometer(AAS) analysis of the filtered leaching solution, it was discovered that Au content was not eluted at all and it was observed from the back scattered electron(BSE) image that native gold was liberated in the insoluble-residue. When magnetic/hydro separation experiments were applied for the insoluble-residue, magnetic and non magnetic minerals were separtated from insoluble-residue. Magnetite was recovered from the magnetic minerals and as a result of applying the hydro separation experiment again for the non-magnetic mineral, native gold was recovered. The native gold was identified through the X-ray diffraction(XRD) analysis and BSE image.

• Journal of the Mineralogical Society of Korea
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.1-14
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• 2019

This study used microwave-nitric acid leaching with the aim of removing penalty elements such as As and Bi. Moreover, enhanced gold content from the gold concentrate sample. The leaching conditions were changed: leaching time, nitric acid concentrations and solid-liquid ratio; In order to improve the removal of penalty elements. As a result of the experiment; sample weight loss rate, As and Bi removal rate and gold content in the solid-residues have been increased when the nitric acid concentration and leaching time were increased while the solid-liquid ratio was decreased. The leaching conditions for the maximum As and Bi removal and gold content were: leaching with a 6.0 M nitric acid solution doing 5 min. At these, the solid-residue sample weight loss was 87 %. As removal rate was 98.23 % and Bi was completely removed (100 %). Furthermore, gold content increased from 81.36 g/t to 487.32 g/t. The XRD of the solid residue showed that pyrite disappeared as the nitric acid concentration was increased, whereas sulfur peaks was increased, too.