Telururos PbNO3 - Cianuracin

TECHNICAL NOTE CONTROL OF CYANIDATION AT .YVAN VI~ZINA PLANT

C. DUFRESNE*, G. DESCHI~NES'I', D. CIMON and J. CORRIGAN~:
The addition of lead nitrate in gold cyanidation is now common practice because of its
beneficial effects in gold recovery. Moreover, the addition of lead nitrate, in January
1992, combined with the stabilization of the cyanide concentration made it possible to
lower the average cyanide concentration by 120 ppm because of the greater confidence
in circuit control.

KINETICS AND MECHANISM OF GOLD AND SILVER DISSOLUTION IN

CYANIDE SOLUTION
HABASHI
With an exception of a few ions such as Na+ K+ Cl- NO3- and SO4-, which have no
effect on the gold dissolution of gold and silver in cyanide solution, ions may have an
accelerating or a retarding effect.
Haden (1938) reported that small amounts of lead and mercuric salts accelerate the
dissolution.

Some studies reported that addition of excessive lead salts may cause a retardation in
the rate of dissolution of the gold, concluding that when the [Pb+2]/[CN-] ratio exceeds a
certain value there is a retarding effect.

Process optimization studies in gold cyanidation

P.D. Kondos *, G. Desch~nes, R.M. Morrison
The positive effect of lead nitrate can be rationalized in a number of ways. One
mechanisms related to its counteracting effect on dissolved sulphide generated from
sulphide mineral reduction reactions which may be coupled with the oxidation of gold.
Sulphide which is distributed in the bulk of the solution will be precipitated by excess
lead as PbS. Sulphide transported to gold surfaces will form a gold sulphide film which
passivates the gold surface. In a simultaneous mechanism, the lead ion may react with
the gold through displacement (cementation) reactions to give a surface which is less
likely to passivate, or the lead ion may react with the gold sulphide film making the
passive gold particle active again. In another mechanism, it is possible that soluble lead
(II) attacks the oxidized gold films, making passive films (due to galvanic passivation)
active again in the absence of sulphide formation.

INVESTIGATION ON THE CYANIDE LEACHING OPTIMIZATION FOR THE

TREATMENT OF KCGM GOLD FLOTATION CONCENTRATEPHASE 1
G. DESCHENES A,*, J. MCMULLEN B, S. ELLIS C, M. FULTON A, A. ATKIN A
A decir por el anlisis qumico
presentado la cantidad de oro en
forma de Telururos puede ser
despreciable

The use of a high lime concentration is very important to produce a high calaverite
leaching rate. Fig. 3 illustrates the dissolution of synthesized calaverite powder at two
different concentration of lime i.e. 120 ppm CaO (pH 11.5) and 800 ppm CaO (pH >
12.5). Other leaching conditions were: 8 ppm O2, 500 ppm NaCN, 500 g/t lead nitrate.
Only 60% gold was dissolved in 48 h at pH 11.5 while all the gold was leached wit 800
ppm lime.

SEM examination of two leached sulphide concentrate samples indicated that the
majority of remaining un-leached gold in the residues occurred as tellurides being
primarily encapsulated within pyrite, indicating that all leachable gold inclusive of the
gold-telluride compounds had been successfully leached. The refractoriness of
tellurides had been effectively mitigated by the applied leach conditions and despite the
high lime conditions, it also confirmed the requirement to provide further liberation in
order

to

increase

recovery.

Because the leaching of the sulphide concentrate at a grind of 21 lm was sub-optimal, it

was decided to direct further efforts in the improvement of leaching the fine sulphide
products (slimes and UFG) of the plant. The addition of lead nitrate, to the leaching of
the site UFG somewhat improved the leaching rate. However, the improvement of the

gold leaching kinetics is not significant with only an increase of 4% in 6 h for the leach
kinetics as indicated in Fig. 10.

TREATMENT OF A REFRACTORY GOLD-COPPER SULFIDE

CONCENTRATE BY COPPER AMMONIACAL THIOSULFATE LEACHING
M.G. AYLMORE

The results in the current research have demonstrated that dissolution of telluride can
take place in copper ammoniacal thiosulfate solutions, but clearly dissolution of coarse
gold tellurides is slow.

PROCESSING TECHNOLOGIES FOR GOLD-TELLURIDE ORES

JIAN ZHANG1), YAO ZHANG1), WILLIAM RICHMOND2), AND HAI-PENG
WANG1)
The utilization of lead salts is beneficial for the removal of polysulfides. It is believed that
lead nitrate can react with gold to produce AuPb2, AuPb3, and metallic lead. This
dramatically speeds up the gold dissolution in a cyanide solution.

The effects of lime concentration and lead nitrate concentration on the leaching rate are
shown in Figs. 5 and 6, respectively. Obviously, the use of high lime concentration is
necessary to achieve a high leaching rate. It is also found that the higher lead nitrate
concentration only slightly improves the leaching rate. This result seems to disagree
with the findings of Deschenes et al who concluded that lead nitrate has a significant
impact on the initial leaching rate of a gold ore containing both tellurides and sulfides.
They proposed that the interaction of very fine particles with plenty of oxygen in the pulp
prevented the lead from eliminating the negative effect of the dissolution of sulfide.

REVIEW OF GOLD EXTRACTION FROM ORES

S.R. La BROOY, H.G. LINGE'I" and G.S. WALKER*
Roasting also decomposes the gold-tellurides in the pyritic concentrates above 450C
by the reaction

Metal sulphide and telluride ore particles are electrically conducting and electrochemical
processing is therefore possible. Sulphide oxidation to either sulphur or sulphate and
gold telluride oxidation cane described as follows:

MANUAL DE MINERALOGIA DE DANNA

CALAVERITE
Tests. Easily fusible (1). If a little of the powdered mineral is heated in concentrated
sulphuric acid the solution assumes a deep red color (tellurium). When decomposed by
nitric acid leaves a rusty-colored, spongy mass of gold, and on addition of hydrochloric
acid gives only a slight precipitate of silver chloride. Distinguished from sylvanite by
small amount of silver present and by its lack of a cleavage.

GOLD ADAMS
When heated in air to around 500DC the gold tellurium bond is readily broken,
producing tellurium dioxide and gold metal. Above 800DC the Te02 sublimes off. A
simple miner's test for gold tellurides consisted of spreading the mineral a few particles
deep on a glass slide and heating it in a flame. The telluride fused, leaving a
characteristic island of telltale gold surrounded by a pool of tellurium oxide.
Jackman and Sarbutt (1990) found that solution changes during leaching gave a
dramatic improvement in gold recovery on a 74 11m gold-tellurium oncentrate grading
218 g/t Au, 410 g/t Te and 41.7% S, the major tellurium mineral being montbrayite
[Au2Te3]. Gold recovery improved from 92% to 98% with two solution changes. The
presence of carbon during the leach process (CIL) was shown to achieve a similar gold
recovery. Lead nitrate was shown to be beneficial in reducing residue grades in all
cases. Fine grinding of the concentrate to 22 urn with CIL leaching improved recovery
further to 98.6%.
Pleysier et al. (2002) examined the leaching behaviour of gold tellurides from a KCGM
flotation concentrate using both a laboratory and theoreticalapproach. Laboratory tests
demonstrated conclusively that the concentrationof tellurium in solution dropped after an
initial increase in concentration Carbon was shown to be effective in removing tellurium
from solution. They concluded that the telluride-leach process was affected by the
presence of sulfides, which were able to cause elemental tellurium to be precipitated

from solution. Once precipitated, tellurium was unlikely to redissolved as this would
involve breaking stable Te-Te bonds, whereas the oxidation of calaverite involves
breakage of the weaker Au-Te bonds.
Cyanide leaching - theoretical considerations
Gold tellurides have been shown to be readily oxidized under modest oxidizing
conditions during cyanide leaching. The tellurium undergoes dissolution most likely as
the tellurite ion (TeO3~-2) and under more strongly oxidizing conditions as the tellurate
ion (TeO4~-2): Should tellurium metal form, it would not easily re-oxidize into solution.

While sulfides per se are not necessarily a problem in precipitating tellurium, transitory
sulfur compounds such as thiosulfate and polysulfides provide a possible mechanism
for the precipitation of elemental tellurium. The use of lead salts is likely to be beneficial
by assisting in the reduction of the polysulfides, thus reducing the driving force of the
reaction.