Use of Thiourea Leaching During Gold-Containing Dump Treatment

Abstract

In Tadzhikistan the volume of gold-containing waste converted to gold is 18 tons. This waste is products of amalgamation and cyaniding processes., and with respect to end component content they may be classified as a very rich type of raw material since they contain 1.7–8.5 g/ton of gold, whereas the average gold content in ores extracted for processing in one of the richest deposits of the republic, i.e., Tarror, comprises 2.4 g/ton. In addition, treatment of these dumps does not require crushing and refining since they have adequate coarseness of a finished class. In view of this the research object is goldcontaining waste of Tarror ore and a number of other adjacent deposits that have been accumulated over a long time. Results are provided for the raw material substance composition of the test raw material and the possibilities of using thiourea leaching for processing them. The main process parameters are optimized and the degree of gold extraction at the level of 80% is demonstrated.

A fundamental production scheme is presented for processing dumps, including the following operations: preliminary acid treatment; sorption thiourea leaching; desorption; reactivation; electrolysis; melting.