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Gold Cyanide Solution, Laboratory Bottle Test Method
This is one method for doing cyanide bottle leaching tests for determining the 'leachability' of gold andsilver by leaching with cyanide.Take the ore to be leached and crush it to a size that will fit into a pulverizer (usually -1/4"). Then feed theore to a pulverizer and grind to -100 mesh. If doing multiple samples, a rotary sample splitter will split thesample in 12 or more splits with 99.9% accuracy. If rotary splitters are not available, or the sample is small(such as small core section), use a riffle splitter to split 50% until approximately a 100 gram sample isobtained. Weigh a 100 g portion on a balance with at least 0.01 g sensitivity. Place this 100 g in a 500 mlwide mouth jar with 300 ml of the prepared 0.5% cyanide solution, prepared as shown below.
Cyanide Solution.
Prepare a 0.5% Cyanide solution, by weighing out the appropriate weight of cyanide for the weight of the water. Three hundred grams of water plus 16 grams of KCN is a 0.5% solution. For 5liters, add 260 g KCN for a 5% solution. Now, add lime, to bring the pH of the solution up to 11. Use a labmixer or stirrer to continuously mix the solution for about 30 minutes. Using a 500 ml graduated cylinder,measure out 300 ml of the solution for use with the leach test. Now, with the 300 ml cyanide solution and the 100 g of ore in the bottle, place the lid on firmly, making aseal. Repeat the above steps for as many tests as need to be done. If hundreds of leach tests are to be run aday, and each initial sample is a Kg or larger, it is well worth while to invest in some automated samplesplitters, since this is the most tedious and error prone part of the operation. If the sample is notrepresentative, the rest of the work is not worth much.Take the 500 ml jars with the leach solution and ore in them and place them on jar roller(s). These aremachines with one, or multiple tiers of rollers, typically ranging from 1 foot long to 6 feet long, that willturn and agitate the slurry of solids and cyanide solution. The bottles need to be agitated around 25-30 rpm's,and most good roller drives have variable speed on them to allow a wide range of adjustment. Typical leachtimes are 24 to 48 hours. It may be feasible to take a small sample after each 12 hour period, checking the pH of the solution and conducting a assay on the liquid withdrawn. A AA Spectrophotometer is probably theeasiest machine to do the assay on dissolved gold in a cyanide solution, although for the hearty assayer,there is a fire assay method for this test, as well. A AA assay gives results in parts per million. 34 PPMequals one ounce per ton, 3.4 PPM equals 0.1 ounce per ton and so on. Some newer AA's give results in PPB(parts per billion), but for bold and silver, if you don't have parts per million, you don't have ore, so it is notnecessary. Normally, there will not be much need to agitate past 24 hours, but occasionally ores do have chemicalreactions that slow down the leach process. So it is recommended that the sample be agitated for at least 12hours past 24 hours, and if the assay does not increase, then it has probably leached all that will be leachedin cyanide solution.Variables to change in bottle leach tests are the strength of the leach solution, the lowest strength solutionthat will leach the precious metal is always the most economic solution. Other variables are the pH of thesolution, making it more alkaline. Acid should be avoided, since if any acid is used prior to the cyanide, andis still present on the ore (as evidenced by a pH lower than 7 in water) it will produce HCN, a very toxic gas.It is good to take a sample of the ground ore and place it in water and agitate it overnight to see if the pHchanges. If it gets acidic, lime should be added to neutralize the acid producing potential of the rock. Also,the CN-AU reaction requires oxygen to be present, so if initial recoveries are poor, try using a larger 1 liter  bottle. This will give a larger volume of air, and hence more oxygen for the reaction.A common method for neutralizing any cyanide left in the tailings is to wash with a solution of Hydrogen
 
Peroxide (H2O2). This neutralizes any unspent CN in the solids, and they may be disposed of, withoutregards to cyanide content.
Gold Cyanide Solution(Leaching Gold With Cyanide)
Since the 1890's, cyanide has been used to recover gold from gold bearing ores. And today, over 115 yearslater, most of the worlds gold is recovered with cyanide playing a large part in the beneficiation of theyellow precious metal. Chemically, it is a rather simple reaction:4 Au + 8(NaCN) +O2 + 2 H2O = 4 NaAu(CN)2 + 4 NaOHThat presumes that the only elements are the gold, Sodium Cyanide and water. However, as any geologistwill tell you, no two ores are the same, and their chemical composition will vary greatly throughout the ore body. These "extra" elements in the mineral compounds will often play havoc with a chemical reaction, asillustrated above.Copper is definitely worth mentioning, since copper minerals will dissolve in cyanide solutions, and cause aincreased use of cyanide, the copper-cyanide complexes formed by the dissolution will tend to inhibit thedissolution of gold in the cyanide solution. Zinc, the element used to precipitate gold from solution, if  present in the ore, will bond with the cyanide to form a zinc cyanide compound. Another element that playswith the cyanide chemistry is nickel. Nickel, however does not interfere with the gold going into solution, but rather the precipitation of the gold from the cyanide solution.Arsenic and antimony do present a larger problem, by reacting with the cyanide and using up all of theexcess oxygen, leaving little or no oxygen to effect the dissolution of gold. Carbonaceous gold ores can havethe carbon adsorb the gold onto its surface, and as a result will not be recovered from the pregnant solution.Leaching gold from sulfide ores is difficult, at best. Generally, the recovery for cyanide leaching of sulfideor refractory ores is no better than 30%, which is not a worthwhile venture.The use of alkalies such as calcium oxide, will prevent the decomposition of cyanide in solution to formhydrogen cyanide gas. It reduces the volume of cyanide required to leach the gold or silver. In addition,hydrogen cyanide is highly toxic to people. So, the few dollars spent on adding a cheap calcium oxide to theore or solution, prior to leaching is worth the money spent. Most cyanide leaching is carried out at a alkaline pH of between 10 and 11, depending upon lab testing of individual ores and the optimum leaching/chemicaluse rates.The cyanide solution strength is also important in leaching gold, with the typical range of solution being inthe 0.02% -0.05% NaCN. The gold particle size has a tremendous effect on the time required for dissolutionin a cyanide solution. Generally, the finer the gold, the quicker it will dissolve. A 45 micron particle of goldwould dissolve in 10-13 hours, while a 150 micron particle might take from 20 to 44 hours to dissolve in thesame solution.Oxygen plays an important role in the leaching of gold in a cyanide solution, also. It has been proven thatthe rate of dissolution of gold in cyanide solution is directly proportional to the amount of oxygen present. Normal water will have 8-9 ppm dissolved oxygen present in it. If this oxygen is used up by other reactions,it may be necessary to aerate the solution, inducing oxygen into it, to speed up the reaction. With cost beingalways the determining factor (except in safety), the decision to aerate and speed up the reaction will bemade based upon economics and laboratory testing. It is not used much anymore, because most leaching isheap leaching, carried out in the outdoors, where drip emitters or sprays distribute the cyanide solution to alarge structure of gold ore, called a "heap". And while the pile of ore is called a heap, it is not a haphazard
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