Candidate of technical sciences, senior researcher, associate professor
Oryngojin Ye.S., magistrate student Oryngojina S.Ye.
The Republic of Kazakhstan
BSE Mining Institute after D.A. Kunaev (Almaty),
Karaganda State Technical University (Karaganda)
ON THE ISSUE OF GOLD EXTRACTION FORM PERSISTENT
SULFIDE ORES
The Republic of Kazakhstan is one of the most important sources of mineral
resource of Central Asia.
In Kazakhstan there are significant reserves of non-ferrous, rare, radioactive metals
and gold. On the territory of Kazakhstan there are more than 2 thousand field and gold
appearances, including nearly 200 surveyed, tens of developed and operative ones. The
regions of developed gold mining are Stepnyak-Bestobinskiy, Maikainskiy,
Rudnoaltaiskiy, Kalbinskiy, Mugodjarskiy, Yujno-Djungarskiy, Shu-Iliiskiy,
Kokshetauskiy regions.
Gold fields of Kazakhstan have been formed in various geotectonic conditions with
the formation of wide diversity of gold-containing formations (gold-cobalt-copper, gold-
molybdenum-copper, gold-tellurium-bismuth, gold-silver, gold-arsenic, kolchadan) and
wide associativity of gold with sulfides: pyrite, arsenopyrite, sulfide copper etc. 21 gold
fields with the total reserves of nearly 1,2 ths.t at the average content of 4,76 g/t are under
the development [1].
The processing of the mined ores is connected with the application of complex
technological processes of concentration and metallurgy characterized with high material
costs, metal waste due to the cycles of technological limit, environmental pollution with
highly toxic agents and production waste. To destroy sulfides and to release gold, highly
oxidizing conditions are needed, in particular oxidizing roasting with subsequent
cyanidation of pyrite cinders. Simple ore cyanidation does not result in high values of
gold extraction. The oxidizing roasting requires the application of highly expensive
equipment and complex gas purifying facilities to trap gold and arsenic from gas phase.
Toughening of environmental safety requirements in the production of gold of
arsenous ores and the absence of effective, environmentally clean technology of their
processing hinders the capacity upbuilding at one of the largest field of Kazakhstan
Bakyrchikskoye.
To extract gold from pyrite and arsenopyrite ores with the cyanides of alkali metals,
preliminary preparation of raw material is needed. The technology of preparation of such
ores for cyanidation based on the oxidation with nitric acid results in the escape of large
amount of sulfur which significantly reduces the gold extraction into the solution in the
course of cyanidation.
The technology of pressure oxidation of sulfide ores is related to high capital and
operational costs. Biometallurgy is overly sensitive to temperature, light conditions and
bacteria dieting. In the conditions of industrial production the required conditions are
difficult to provide. Therefore in recent years the world gold mining industry has been
actively searching for new technological solutions for sulfide ore processing.
At present time there are still no quite manufacturable, low cost, environmentally
clean and effective methods of processing of sulfide gold-containing products.
Destruction of sulfides and release of gold are possible only at significant pressure
oxidation or at oxidizing roasting with the subsequent hydrometallurgical rerolling of
pyrite cinders. For the oxidizing roasting, expensive kilns and large amount of gas
purifying facilities are needed. In the most productive kilns with boiling bed, the flue dust
escape, containing gold in gas phase, amounts to nearly 30-35%. Besides, the gas
purification from the arsenic containing in it is very complicated.
Simple cyanidation without sulfides oxidation will not result in high values of gold
extraction. Cyanide technology requires the application of highly toxic agent, results in
large accumulation of cyanide-containing water, sharp increase of costs for nature
protection activities and at that does not always ensure the completeness of gold
extraction from sulfides. The replacement of toxic agent (sodium cyanide) with other,
non-toxic one, and the expansion of the pH range of environment would ensure safer
labor conditions, increase of intensity and completeness of gold extraction and
environmental cleanness of production technology of this metal. Therefore to develop the
gold mining works in the Republic of Kazakhstan, the vital remains the issue of the
search for relatively inexpensive, environmentally clean and special methods of sulfide
ore processing, which are effective with regard to gold extraction.
The technologies for processing of persistent sulfide ores applied in Kazakhstan are
characterized for high material and labor costs, are multi-operational and are not
environmentally safe.
The review of material and resource base of gold mining industry of Kazakhstan
revealed that the main typomorphic elements of the majority of gold fields of Kazakhstan
are the ones associating with gold Ag, As, Sb, Pb, Zn, Cu, Bi, Te, Mo, Sn, Co, Hg and
other elements. Association of gold with sulfides, availability of tellurides, gold
chalcophile property, connection with arsenic, antimony, lead, bismuth and other
elements hinder gold extraction. Dense films of argentine, arsenopyrite, galenite, ferric
oxide etc., which are difficult to destroy, commonly found on the minerals hinder gold
extraction. At this the method of gold extraction is connected with the form of its
situation and concentration in ores. All existing methods of production of noble metals
from persistent ores are based on sulfide decomposition. According to the decreasing
sensitivity to self-oxidation sulfide can be placed in the following order:
FeAsS>FeS2>CuFeS2>ZnS>PbS>Cu2S.
Sulfide oxidation takes the highest speed at the beginning, the sulfides of old
geological formations are more stable than that of later ones and that sulfide mixtures are
oxidized quicker than individual minerals. Arsenopyrite and pyrite are chemically stable
compounds and resist direct leaching with acid and alcali solutions; their decomposition
becomes possible only in the presence of oxidizer able to replace their potentials toward
positive value. As it was described before, to oxidize the sulfide minerals the oxidizing
roasting (pyrometallurgy) with subsequent hydrometallurgical rerolling of pyrite cinders
is applied. The roasting requires expensive kelns and large amount of gas purifying
facilities. Cyanide technology requires the application of highly toxic agent, harsh
conditions with regard to (-) and Eh(+1000 ), leads to large-scale accumulation
of cyanide-containing ores, sharp increase of costs for nature protection activities and at
that does not ensure the needed completeness of gold extraction.
The increase of cyanidation efficiency is possible both by means of improvement of
the cyanidation process itself and by means of preliminary extraction of large particle of
gold from ores during the grinding circuit. The most successful method of processing of
gravity concentrates is their leaching with concentrated solutions of cyanide with the use
of pure oxygen as an oxidizer.
At the cyanide leaching of preliminary oxidized sulfide ores, the process of gold
solution is expressed with the equation:
4u + 8NaCN + 2H2O + O2 = 4Na[Au(CN)2] + 4NaOH.
As a result of side reactions, the part of active groups of sorbent is occupied with
anions of admixtures that reduces the sorbent capacity with regard to noble metals. From
the solution of complex cyanide Na[Au(CN)2] the gold is effectively extracted with the
use of resins, for instance Amberlit IRA 400.
For selective gold extraction in this case sorption should be carried out in the
presence of admixture of organic solvents with mineral acids (for instance acetone and
nitric acid).
Semi-functional anionites are also effective for gold sorption, since they selectively
sorb gold-cyanide complex from cyanic solutions and pulps of complex composition.
Electrolytic sorption and electric desorption can be used quite effectively. In the course
of work with gold-containing ore pulps, the increase of efficiency of ore pulp cyanidation
can be expected in case of implementation of countercurrent leaching; this would ensure
the increase of extraction and content of metals in liquid phase.
Environmental safety of gold production can be improved by replacing tixic
reagent-cyanide with other, non-toxic reagents and by expanding the pH range of
solutions.
To some extent this direction can result in the increase of gold extraction.
The search for cyanides replacement should be done in the presence of complexing
agents with respect to gold, the constants of which are stable and standard oxidizing and
reduction potentials of the system are compatible with the analogous values for cyanide-
ions.
1. Halogenide-ions in the same way as ligands and conjugated compounds as
oxidizers. So well known are: family of bromic reagents, chlorination with gaseous
chlorine in hydrochlorid-acid environment, preliminary treatment with dry chlorine,
sodium hypochlorite in the presence of ligand non-halogenide, treatment with chlorine-
containing solution with oxidizer non-halogenide (CuCI2, FeCI3), treatment with pulp
hypochlorite in the presence of excessive sodium chloride, acidation of chlorine-
containing solution with hydrochloric and nitric acids, fluorination.
2. Thiourea in the presence of various oxidizers (air, oxygen (II) - ion, Fe(III) -
ion.
3. Thiosulfate.
4. Thiocyanate with oxidizers.
The increase of efficiency of application of sorption without filter technology of
gold extraction from pulp-free ores should be done in the following directions:
improvement of quality of ores and resins, improvement of countercurrent corption,
introduction of sludge and associated arresters, application of electroacoustic pulp
treatment etc.
The study of the issue of gold extraction efficiency increase from sulfide ores
revealed that basically the assigned task can be solved with cyanideless method with the
use of the cheapest and the most available reagent sodium salt (NaCl).
Electrochemical technology of gold leaching from sulfide ores can become the
alternative for the existing cyanic technology.
Literature:
1. Bolotova L.S., Romenenko A.G., Zaiceva V.N., Suvorova Ye.N. The latest in the
technology of gold extraction resin in pulp. // News of Kazakhstan science. Scientific
and technical collection. Integrated use of mineral resources of Kazakhstan. Almaty,
1997.
