Deprecated: The each() function is deprecated. This message will be suppressed on further calls in /home/zhenxiangba/zhenxiangba.com/public_html/phproxy-improved-master/index.php on line 456
GB2154221A - Extraction process - Google Patents
[go: Go Back, main page]

GB2154221A - Extraction process - Google Patents

Extraction process Download PDF

Info

Publication number
GB2154221A
GB2154221A GB08403318A GB8403318A GB2154221A GB 2154221 A GB2154221 A GB 2154221A GB 08403318 A GB08403318 A GB 08403318A GB 8403318 A GB8403318 A GB 8403318A GB 2154221 A GB2154221 A GB 2154221A
Authority
GB
United Kingdom
Prior art keywords
gold
process according
hypohalite
noble metals
matter
Prior art date
Legal status (The legal status is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the status listed.)
Withdrawn
Application number
GB08403318A
Other versions
GB8403318D0 (en
Inventor
Lee Fisher Robinson
Angus William Morrison
Current Assignee (The listed assignees may be inaccurate. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation or warranty as to the accuracy of the list.)
HYDROMET MINERAL
Original Assignee
HYDROMET MINERAL
Priority date (The priority date is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the date listed.)
Filing date
Publication date
Application filed by HYDROMET MINERAL filed Critical HYDROMET MINERAL
Priority to GB08403318A priority Critical patent/GB2154221A/en
Publication of GB8403318D0 publication Critical patent/GB8403318D0/en
Publication of GB2154221A publication Critical patent/GB2154221A/en
Priority to CA000574696A priority patent/CA1330627C/en
Withdrawn legal-status Critical Current

Links

Classifications

    • CCHEMISTRY; METALLURGY
    • C22METALLURGY; FERROUS OR NON-FERROUS ALLOYS; TREATMENT OF ALLOYS OR NON-FERROUS METALS
    • C22BPRODUCTION AND REFINING OF METALS; PRETREATMENT OF RAW MATERIALS
    • C22B11/00Obtaining noble metals
    • C22B11/04Obtaining noble metals by wet processes
    • CCHEMISTRY; METALLURGY
    • C22METALLURGY; FERROUS OR NON-FERROUS ALLOYS; TREATMENT OF ALLOYS OR NON-FERROUS METALS
    • C22BPRODUCTION AND REFINING OF METALS; PRETREATMENT OF RAW MATERIALS
    • C22B3/00Extraction of metal compounds from ores or concentrates by wet processes
    • C22B3/20Treatment or purification of solutions, e.g. obtained by leaching
    • C22B3/22Treatment or purification of solutions, e.g. obtained by leaching by physical processes, e.g. by filtration, by magnetic means, or by thermal decomposition
    • C22B3/24Treatment or purification of solutions, e.g. obtained by leaching by physical processes, e.g. by filtration, by magnetic means, or by thermal decomposition by adsorption on solid substances, e.g. by extraction with solid resins
    • CCHEMISTRY; METALLURGY
    • C01INORGANIC CHEMISTRY
    • C01GCOMPOUNDS CONTAINING METALS NOT COVERED BY SUBCLASSES C01D OR C01F
    • C01G7/00Compounds of gold
    • C01G7/003Preparation involving a liquid-liquid extraction, an adsorption or an ion-exchange
    • CCHEMISTRY; METALLURGY
    • C22METALLURGY; FERROUS OR NON-FERROUS ALLOYS; TREATMENT OF ALLOYS OR NON-FERROUS METALS
    • C22BPRODUCTION AND REFINING OF METALS; PRETREATMENT OF RAW MATERIALS
    • C22B11/00Obtaining noble metals
    • C22B11/08Obtaining noble metals by cyaniding
    • CCHEMISTRY; METALLURGY
    • C22METALLURGY; FERROUS OR NON-FERROUS ALLOYS; TREATMENT OF ALLOYS OR NON-FERROUS METALS
    • C22BPRODUCTION AND REFINING OF METALS; PRETREATMENT OF RAW MATERIALS
    • C22B3/00Extraction of metal compounds from ores or concentrates by wet processes
    • C22B3/04Extraction of metal compounds from ores or concentrates by wet processes by leaching
    • C22B3/16Extraction of metal compounds from ores or concentrates by wet processes by leaching in organic solutions
    • C22B3/1608Leaching with acyclic or carbocyclic agents
    • C22B3/1616Leaching with acyclic or carbocyclic agents of a single type
    • CCHEMISTRY; METALLURGY
    • C22METALLURGY; FERROUS OR NON-FERROUS ALLOYS; TREATMENT OF ALLOYS OR NON-FERROUS METALS
    • C22BPRODUCTION AND REFINING OF METALS; PRETREATMENT OF RAW MATERIALS
    • C22B3/00Extraction of metal compounds from ores or concentrates by wet processes
    • C22B3/20Treatment or purification of solutions, e.g. obtained by leaching
    • C22B3/26Treatment or purification of solutions, e.g. obtained by leaching by liquid-liquid extraction using organic compounds
    • C22B3/306Ketones or aldehydes
    • YGENERAL TAGGING OF NEW TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS; GENERAL TAGGING OF CROSS-SECTIONAL TECHNOLOGIES SPANNING OVER SEVERAL SECTIONS OF THE IPC; TECHNICAL SUBJECTS COVERED BY FORMER USPC CROSS-REFERENCE ART COLLECTIONS [XRACs] AND DIGESTS
    • Y02TECHNOLOGIES OR APPLICATIONS FOR MITIGATION OR ADAPTATION AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE
    • Y02PCLIMATE CHANGE MITIGATION TECHNOLOGIES IN THE PRODUCTION OR PROCESSING OF GOODS
    • Y02P10/00Technologies related to metal processing
    • Y02P10/20Recycling

Landscapes

  • Chemical & Material Sciences (AREA)
  • Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
  • Organic Chemistry (AREA)
  • Mechanical Engineering (AREA)
  • Manufacturing & Machinery (AREA)
  • Materials Engineering (AREA)
  • Metallurgy (AREA)
  • Geology (AREA)
  • Geochemistry & Mineralogy (AREA)
  • General Life Sciences & Earth Sciences (AREA)
  • Life Sciences & Earth Sciences (AREA)
  • Environmental & Geological Engineering (AREA)
  • Inorganic Chemistry (AREA)
  • Manufacture And Refinement Of Metals (AREA)

Abstract

A process, for recovering gold and/or other noble metals from matter containing such metals, comprises contacting the matter with hypohalite followed by extracting of the desired metal or metals using a suitable leaching agent (e.g. acid, organic solvent, dilute alkaline cyanide or thiourea).

Description

SPECIFICATION Extraction process This invention relates to the recovery of gold and other noble metal values form matter containing such values, such as ores and glacial desposits and is also applicable to recovery of such values from tailings slimes and other discarded materials from various previous methods for recovery of gold, silver and other noble metals.
As the chances of finding gold and other noble metals in viable concentrations decrease, the implementation of more economically feasible processes of recovery assumes greater commercial significance.
Previous attempts have been made to recover gold from ores by leaching methods. Thus, the earliest method used for this purpose was to leach the ore with aqua regia, a highly corrosive mixture of concentrated nitric and hydrochloric acid. The use of such a chemical mix was fraught with difficulties, including serious danger to workmen, and was abandoned, as was the use of chlorine gas in a strong acid solution, which method suffered sim ilar disadvantages. Such processes have effectively been abandoned.
A later process, introduced in South Africa in about 1890 was the cyanidation process. In a typical process, finely ground slime is allowed to settle in thickening tanks, the thickened poriton is drawn off from the bottom and transferred for leaching with a large volume of dilute metallic cyanide plus lime, et. to cyanidation tanks where, after agitation by aeration, the gold-bearing solution is bled off and the gold is removed from the solution by contacting process with actived carbon. The gold adheres to the carbon which is subsequently separated from the slimes by screening.
In a more recent and improved modification of this technique, known as the "carbon-in-pulp" process, the gold present in a leach pulp adheres to activated carbon added to the pulp and the carbon and gold are subsequently separated by screening from the pulp.
Further new processes, using more environmentally acceptable leaching agents, are described in U.K. Patent Application Nos. 8305871, 8315241 and 8328151. Thus, matter containing gold and/or other noble metals is contacted with an aqueous leaching agent comprising a source of halide ions and an oxidising agent capable of enhancing the leaching action of the halide ions. The freed metal values may be extracted by various methods, such as the use of an activated material (e.g. activated carbon or cellulose chaff), the use of a specific complexing agent (e.g. the use of Rhodamine B for gold extraction) or the use of an organic extractant (e.g. methyl isobutyl ketone).
The presently available processes do not always give good yields, especially when used with ores which are difficult to process, such as ores, ore concentrates and tailing containing metallic sulphides. Such materials are normally calcined to remove the sulphides. This is energy expensive and the sulphur dioxide effluents are environmentally unacceptable.
The present invention seeks to provide an improved process for recovering gold and other noble metals which may be used independently of, or in conjunction with, the above-described processes and which are suitable for use with recalcitrant ores which are difficult to process.
According to the present invention, we provide a process for the recovery of gold and/or other noble metals from matter contianing such metals, comprising contacting said matter with a hypohalite and subsequently extracting the gold and/or other noble metals from the resulting mixture using a suitable leaching agent.
The hypohalite is preferably hypochlorite, such as sodium, potassium and calcium hypochlorite. It may be used as an aqueous solution or slurry.
Commercially available hypohalite may be used.
Alternatively, the hypohalite may be generated in situ by electrolysing a halide. Thus, for example, sodium hypochlorite may be produced in situ by the electrolysis of brine in the presence of the ore being treated.
After hypohalite treatment, the resulting aqueous mixture may be treated with a leaching agent, such as an acid (for example hydrochloric acid). The gold or other desired metal values may be recovered by any suitable means, for example as described in the above-referenced U.K. Patent Applications Nos. 8305871, 8315241 and 8328151.
Thus, acidic treatment of a mixture of gold bearing material and hypochlorite followed by extraction of the resultant slurry, or separated acidic liquor, with an organic solvent, such as methyl isobutyl ketone, will result in a high proportion of the gold originally present being extracted and subsequently recovered.
Alternatively, the mixture of gold bearing material and hypohalite can be subjected to leaching with dilute alkaline cyanide solutions by known methods to increase the gold extraction efficiency.
Known cyanide processes, such as the carbon-inpulp process mentioned above or the traditional carbon bed extraction of gold cyanide, may be used to recover the gold.
A further alternative method of gold recovery, useable in conjunction with hypohalite treatment, is the thiourea method developed in South Africa for leaching sulphide ores as an alternative to the use of cyanide leaching.
The following examples illustrate the invention.
Example 1 To a 100 g sample of sulphide-containing ground ore there was slowly added 300 ml of sodium hypochlorite solution with stirring. The mixture was heated to 93 to 97"C for about half an hour and then vacuum filtered. The residue was washed with 3 x 50 ml portions of distilled water. The filtrate (total volume 416 ml) was acidified, firstly using 100 ml of 10% wlw solution of hydrochloric acid and thereafter using concentrated hydrochloric acid. The total volume of concentrated hydrochloric acid used in the overall acidification was estimated to have been 50 ml. The acid was added slowly with stirring. Chlorine was evolved below pH4, The final pH was 1.7 and the resulting leach liquor was of pale orange appearance and had a total volume, when acidified, of 540 ml.
A 200 ml portion of leach liquor was extracted with methyl isobutyl ketone. A subsequent assay of the methyl isobutyl ketone gave a gold assay of 2.70 Fg ml-1. This was equivalent to an extraction of 145.8 wg of gold from a total of 270 9 gold in the original 100 g sample of ore, i.e. an extraction efficiency of 54%.
Example 2 A sample from a sulphide-containing ore tailings dump, being conventionally treated using a known carbon-in-pulp process, was given a pre-treatment at the rate of one kilogram of calcium hypochlorite per tonne of ore. The ore was then subjected to the conventional carbon-in-pulp process and the gold value in the carbon assayed. The gold extraction rate was found to be 1.8 g per tonne using hypochlorite pre-treatment whereas the previous extraction rate, not employing hypochlorite, was 0.3 g per tonne.

Claims (13)

1. A process for the recovery of gold and/or other noble metals from matter contining such metals, comprising contacting said matter with a hypohalite and subsequently extracting the gold and/or other noble metals from the resulting mixture using a suitable leaching agent.
2. A process according to claim 1 wherein the hypohalite is hypochlorite.
3. A process according to claim 2 wherein the hypohalite is selected from sodium, potassium and calcium hypochlorite.
4. A process according to any one of claims 1 to 3 wherein the matter containing gold and/or other noble metals comprises ore, ore concentrate or tailings containing metallic sulphides.
5. A process according to any one of the preceding claims wherein the hypohalite is supplied as an aqueous solution or slurry.
6. A process according to any one of claims 1 to 4 wherein the hypohalite is generated in situ by the electrolysis of a halide in the presence of the matter being treated.
7. A process according to any one of the preceding claims wherein the metal extracted is gold.
8. A process according to any one of the preceding claims wherein the leaching agent is an acid.
9. A process according to claim 8 wherein the desired gold and/or other noble metals are subsequently extracted with an organic solvent.
10. A process according to claim 7 wherein the leaching agent comprises dilute alkaline cyanide.
11. A process according to claim 7 wherein the leaching agent comprises thiourea.
12. A process for the recovery of gold substantially as described herein with reference to Exam ple 1 or 2.
13. Gold and/or other noble metals when recovered by the process of any one of the preceding claims.
GB08403318A 1984-02-08 1984-02-08 Extraction process Withdrawn GB2154221A (en)

Priority Applications (2)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
GB08403318A GB2154221A (en) 1984-02-08 1984-02-08 Extraction process
CA000574696A CA1330627C (en) 1984-02-08 1988-08-12 Process for the extraction of valuable metals

Applications Claiming Priority (1)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
GB08403318A GB2154221A (en) 1984-02-08 1984-02-08 Extraction process

Publications (2)

Publication Number Publication Date
GB8403318D0 GB8403318D0 (en) 1984-03-14
GB2154221A true GB2154221A (en) 1985-09-04

Family

ID=10556277

Family Applications (1)

Application Number Title Priority Date Filing Date
GB08403318A Withdrawn GB2154221A (en) 1984-02-08 1984-02-08 Extraction process

Country Status (1)

Country Link
GB (1) GB2154221A (en)

Cited By (1)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
GB2180829A (en) * 1985-09-20 1987-04-08 Aurotech N L Precious metal extraction

Citations (2)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
GB227660A (en) * 1924-02-28 1925-01-22 Alexander Nathansohn A process for the separation of lead and zinc in roasted compound ores
GB1088635A (en) * 1963-07-20 1967-10-25 Philip Arthur Chubb Treatment of silica sand

Patent Citations (2)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
GB227660A (en) * 1924-02-28 1925-01-22 Alexander Nathansohn A process for the separation of lead and zinc in roasted compound ores
GB1088635A (en) * 1963-07-20 1967-10-25 Philip Arthur Chubb Treatment of silica sand

Cited By (2)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
GB2180829A (en) * 1985-09-20 1987-04-08 Aurotech N L Precious metal extraction
GB2180829B (en) * 1985-09-20 1989-08-16 Aurotech N L Precious metal extraction

Also Published As

Publication number Publication date
GB8403318D0 (en) 1984-03-14

Similar Documents

Publication Publication Date Title
Prasad et al. Modern trends in gold processing—overview
US4738718A (en) Method for the recovery of gold using autoclaving
US4637865A (en) Process for metal recovery and compositions useful therein
JPH0530887B2 (en)
CA1257970A (en) Process to manufacture silver chloride
US4053305A (en) Recovery of copper and silver from sulfide concentrates
US5308381A (en) Ammonia extraction of gold and silver from ores and other materials
US3767760A (en) Process for recovery of precious metals from copper containing materials
US3476552A (en) Mercury process
CA2063694A1 (en) Ammonia extraction of gold and silver from ores and other materials
CA1107077A (en) Extraction of gold and silver
NZ205153A (en) Hydrometallurgical process for recovery of gold or silver from ores
US4537628A (en) Recovery of precious metals
US5939042A (en) Tellurium extraction from copper electrorefining slimes
US5807421A (en) Hydrometallurgical extraction process
US4681628A (en) Gold Recovery processes
WO1982001195A1 (en) Recovery of silver and gold from ores and concentrates
KR0145346B1 (en) How to extract precious metals from minerals or other precious metal-containing substances using halogen salts
GB2154221A (en) Extraction process
RU2062803C1 (en) Method for processing of bismuth-containing concentrates
Tran The hydrometallurgy of gold processing
EP0257548B1 (en) Process for the recovery of silver from zinc plant calcines and neutral or low acid leach residues with thiourea
US1941914A (en) Electrochemical process for the recovery of metals from ores and other metal bearing materials
Scheiner et al. Recovery of silver and mercury from mill tailings by electrooxidation
WO2001012865A1 (en) Method of removal of impurities from gold concentrate containing sulfides

Legal Events

Date Code Title Description
WAP Application withdrawn, taken to be withdrawn or refused ** after publication under section 16(1)