The industrial validated technology used in gold mining that deals with copper‑gold ores is the SART process, which allows a viable treatment for these complex minerals. The clarification or thickening stage in this processing, in which copper precipitates are separated, has several challenges such as copper losses (as solids in the overflow or by re-dissolution due to the high residence time) and large size pieces of equipment due to the complex settling characteristics of the copper precipitates. In this regard, this study presents a change in the traditional process by replacing conventional equipment with membrane-based unit operations. This new integrated membrane process, called SuCy process, is based on metal sulfide precipitation, as the SART process, and comprises a sequence of stages including microfiltration to clarify the copper precipitates, gas-filled membrane absorption (GFMA) to produce a concentrated cyanide solution, and a final membrane ultrafiltration stage to clarify the gypsum generated in the neutralization of the treated solution. This study includes sequential tests for each membrane stage at laboratory scale, treating three synthetic cyanide solutions containing different contents of copper (1800 and 1000 mg/L), a mixture of copper and zinc (616 mg/L Cu and 316 mg/L Zn), and a real cyanide solution from a gold mine. Permeate flux for the microfiltration stage ranged from 0.1 L/m²s to 1.4 L/m²s, where the highest values were achieved for copper precipitates suspensions. The characteristics of zinc precipitates promoted a decrease in permeate flux. The HCN flux in the GFMA stage was higher than 0.9 mg/m²s, with cyanide recovery values higher than 98% at 60 min. The permeate flux for the ultrafiltration stage for gypsum clarification was higher than 0.25 L/m²s for all synthetic solutions tested, with a severe decline by one order of magnitude for the real solution due to its high sulfate content. These results were compared with the SART process, both at laboratory scale, including process design and economic estimation, showing a plant size reduction up to 90% for the SuCy process with respect to the SART process, in addition to decreasing the capital cost by over 25% and keeping the operational costs under similar evaluation conditions. Thus, the integrated membrane process proposed here could be a promising alternative for the conventional SART process, enhancing the clarification effectiveness and reducing equipment size requirements and capital costs.

在SART工艺中，用于金矿开采的处理铜金矿石的工业验证技术是SART工艺，该工艺可以对这些复杂的矿物进行可行的处理。在此过程中，分离出铜沉淀物的澄清或增稠阶段遇到了一些挑战，例如铜损（由于溢流时间长而固体或由于高停留时间而重新溶解），以及由于铜沉淀物的复杂沉降特性。在这方面，本研究通过用基于膜的单元操作代替常规设备，提出了传统工艺的变化。这种称为SuCy工艺的新型集成膜工艺基于SART工艺，是基于金属硫化物沉淀的，并包括一系列步骤，包括微滤以澄清铜沉淀物，充气膜吸收（GFMA）以产生浓缩的氰化物溶液，以及最终膜超滤阶段以澄清在中和处理过的溶液中产生的石膏。这项研究包括在实验室范围内对每个膜阶段进行顺序测试，处理三种合成氰化物溶液，其中含有不同含量的铜（1800和1000 mg / L），铜和锌的混合物（616 mg / L Cu和316 mg / L Zn） ），以及来自金矿的真正氰化物溶液。微滤阶段的渗透通量范围为0.1 L / m 最后的膜超滤阶段，以澄清中和处理过的溶液中产生的石膏。这项研究包括在实验室范围内对每个膜阶段进行顺序测试，处理三种合成氰化物溶液，其中含有不同含量的铜（1800和1000 mg / L），铜和锌的混合物（616 mg / L Cu和316 mg / L Zn） ），以及来自金矿的真正氰化物溶液。微滤阶段的渗透通量范围为0.1 L / m 最后的膜超滤阶段，以澄清中和处理过的溶液中产生的石膏。这项研究包括在实验室范围内对每个膜阶段进行顺序测试，处理三种合成氰化物溶液，其中含有不同含量的铜（1800和1000 mg / L），铜和锌的混合物（616 mg / L Cu和316 mg / L Zn） ），以及来自金矿的真正氰化物溶液。微滤阶段的渗透通量范围为0.1 L / m² s至1.4 L / m ² s，其中铜沉淀物悬浮液达到最高值。锌沉淀物的特性促进了渗透通量的减少。GFMA阶段的HCN通量高于0.9 mg / m ² s，在60分钟时氰化物的回收率高于98％。石膏澄清超滤阶段的渗透通量高于0.25 L / m ²对于所有测试的合成溶液，由于其高硫酸盐含量，实际溶液严重下降了一个数量级。将这些结果与SART过程进行了比较，包括实验室规模在内，包括过程设计和经济估算，结果表明，相对于SART过程，SuCy过程的工厂规模减少了90％，此外还使投资成本降低了90％以上。 25％，并在类似的评估条件下保持运营成本。因此，此处提出的集成膜工艺可能是常规SART工艺的一种有前途的替代方法，可以提高澄清效果并减少设备尺寸要求和资金成本。