Experimental study on thiosulfate leaching of gold from a high copper gold concentrate

Abstract

The conventional cyanide leaching process is used to extract gold from a high copper gold concentrate. Because the copper associated minerals consume sodium cyanide in large quantities, the cost of the reagents is high and the economic benefit is not ideal. At the same time, a large number of cyanide tail slag are produced, which brings a series of environmental problems. In order to solve the environmental problems caused by excessive sodium cyanide consumption and cyanogen slag, the feasibility of leaching gold by thiosulfate in copper ammonia system was studied. The gold leaching rate of thiosulfate was increased to more than 90% by using the direct thiosulfate leaching process and pretreatment thiosulfate leaching process, which was close to the gold leaching index of sodium cyanide at the production site.