Study on the Gold Recovery of Double Refractory Gold Ore Concentrate by Biological Oxidation Pretreatment

Abstract

In this paper, Bacterial oxidation-cyanide leaching experiments were carried out and the carbonaceous substances composition of carbonaceous gold concentrate was been studied. The elemental composition was 9.73 % iron, 9.66 % sulfur, 4.84 % arsenic and 13.23 % carbon which element carbon and organic carbon was 12.11wt.% and 0.06 wt.% respectively. The main carbonaceous substances were elemental carbon which the morphology was dense and similar to graphite. The removal rates of iron, arsenic and sulfur were achieved to 93.78%, 97.02% and 95.54% respectively by bioleaching, and the gold recovery of oxidation residue reached 92.34% by carbon inhibited cyanide leaching process. The sulfide minerals packing problem could be effectively solved by bacterial oxidation process and greatly increased the gold recovery. So the bacteria oxidation and carbon inhibited leaching process is applicable to the carbonaceous gold ore.