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Biooxidation-thiosulfate leaching of refractory gold concentrate

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Abstract

A process of biooxidation followed by thiosulfate leaching of gold from refractory gold concentrate was investigated. Mineralogical studies on the concentrate showed that very fine gold grains (<10 µm) were encapsulated in pyrite and arsenopyrite, while the proportion of monomer gold was only 21%. The gold-bearing sample was identified as a high-sulfur fine-sized wrapped-type refractory gold concentrate. The gold leaching efficiency obtained by direct cyanidation was only 59.86%. After biooxidation pretreatment, the sulfide minerals were almost completely decomposed, 92wt% of the mineral particles of the biooxidation residue were decreased to <38 µm, and the proportion of monomer gold in the biooxidation residue was over 86%. Meanwhile, the gold content in the biooxidation residue was enriched to 55.60 g/t, and the S, Fe, and As contents were reduced to approximately 19.8wt%, 6.97wt%, and 0.13wt%, respectively. Ammoniacal thiosulfate was used for gold extraction from the biooxidation residue of the refractory gold concentrate. The results showed that the optimal reagent conditions were 0.18 M thiosulfate, 0.02 M copper(II), 1.0 M ammonia, and 0.24 M sulfite. Under these conditions, a maximum gold leaching efficiency of 85.05% was obtained.

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the Special Funds for the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. U1608254) and the Open Fund of State Key Laboratory of Comprehensive Utilization of Low-Grade Refractory Gold Ores (No. ZJKY2017(B)KFJJ01 and ZJKY2017(B)KFJJ02).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory for Ecological Metallurgy of Multimetallic Mineral (Ministry of Education), Northeastern University, Shenyang, 110819, China

    He-fei Zhao, Hong-ying Yang, Lin-lin Tong, Qin Zhang & Ye Kong

  2. School of Metallurgy, Northeastern University, Shenyang, 110819, China

    He-fei Zhao, Hong-ying Yang, Lin-lin Tong, Qin Zhang & Ye Kong

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  1. He-fei Zhao
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  2. Hong-ying Yang
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Correspondence to Hong-ying Yang.

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Zhao, Hf., Yang, Hy., Tong, Ll. et al. Biooxidation-thiosulfate leaching of refractory gold concentrate. Int J Miner Metall Mater 27, 1075–1082 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12613-020-1964-9

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