Hydrometallurgy, 18 (1987) 305-319 305

Elsevier Science Publishers B.V., Amsterdam - - Printed in The Netherlands

The Direct E l e c t r o w i n n i n g of Gold from Dilute

Cyanide Leach Liquors

N.P. BRANDON, M.N. MAHMOOD, P.W. PAGE and C.A. ROBERTS

B P Research Centre, Sunbury-on- Thames, Middlesex TW16 7LN (Great Britain)
(Received May 23, 1986; accepted in revised form December 5, 1986)

ABSTRACT

Brandon, N.P., Mahmood, M.N., Page, P.W. and Roberts, C.A., 1987. The direct electrowinning
of gold from dilute cyanide leach liquors. HydrometaUurgy, 18: 305-319.

A cylindrical electrowinning cell employing a three-dimensional steel wool cathode has been
used to investigate the effect of free cyanide concentration, pH, solution conductivity and base
metal impurities on the electrowinning of gold from alkaline cyanide leach liquors containing up
to 5 mg/1 gold. The recovery of gold in a given time decreased: (a) as the pH decreased below 13,
(b) if more than 10 mg/1 of Fe, Cu, Zn or Hg were present in solution, (c) as the free NaCN
concentration was increased, (d) with decreasing conductivity of the solution. High gold recov-
eries can be obtained with relatively low electrical energy consumption; greater than 96% recovery
in one hour from 5 mg/1 gold solutions with an electrical energy consumption of 112 kWh/kg at a
current efficiency of 0.33% is possible.
Experimentally derived graphs of solution concentration versus time of electrolysis were ana-
lysed by means of a simple reactor model and approximate mass transfer coefficients were calcu-
lated. These were compared with coefficients calculated from data on the performance of Mintek
cells in South African gold recovery operations. The application of these data to the prediction of
required electrode area and hence cost for a commercial dilute electrowinning installation is
discussed.

INTRODUCTION

Heap leaching with alkaline sodium cyanide solutions has become an impor-
tant method of gold extraction, producing, typically, a liquor containing 0.5 to
5 mg/1 of gold. Current technology for recovering the gold from these dilute
solutions employs adsorption of the precious metal onto activated carbon [ 1,2 ].
The carbon is subsequently stripped to produce a concentrated solution
(50-1000 mg/1 Au) from which the gold is electrowon. Alternatively, small
throughputs of relatively rich solutions, or those which contain large amounts
of silver, may be treated by zinc dust precipitation [ 3 ], though these condi-
tions are unlikely to apply in heap leach operations.

0304-386X/87/$03.50 © 1987 Elsevier Science Publishers B.V.

306

Elges et al. [4] and Mooiman et al. [5] have suggested that heap leaching
procedures could be simplified by electrowinning gold directly from the dilute
heap leach liquor. This would eliminate the activated carbon adsorption, strip-
ping and regeneration steps.
The aim of this work was to study the effect of free cyanide concentration,
pH, solution conductivity and base metal impurities on the direct electrowin-
ning of gold from dilute cyanide leach liquors. Following on from this, prelim-
inary design studies were made to determine whether or not the concepts could
be used in economically viable gold recovery processes.
Whilst concentrating on the t r e a t m e n t of heap leach liquors, the results are
relevant to any process involving the electrowinning of gold from dilute solu-
tion, such as the removal of gold from metal finishing and plating process
effluents.

ELECTROCHEMICALREACTIONS

Three cathodic reactions can occur during gold electrowinning from alkaline
cyanide solutions:
Au(CN)~ +e- =Au+2 CN- (1)
E = - 0 . 6 + 0 . 0 5 9 l o g [ A u ( C N ) 2 ] - 0 . 1 1 8 log[CN ]
2 H20+2 e- ~-H2 + 2 O H - (2)
E-~ - 0 . 8 3 - 0 . 0 5 9 l o g [ O H - ]
02 + 2 H z O + 4 e - = 4 O H - (3)

E _~0.4 - 0.059 log [ 0 H - ]

where E represents the electrode potential required for the reaction to occur
and the square brackets, species concentration in solution.
Reaction (2) is the primary competing cathodic reaction and is a consumer
of charge. At the anode, oxygen evolution dominates, accompanied by the
kinetically slower oxidation of cyanide to cyanate:
4 O H - = 2 H20+O2 + 4 e - (4)
E_~ 0.4 - 0.059 log [ O H - ]
2 OH- +CN- =CNO- +HzO+2 e- (5)

E = - 0.97 - 0.0295 log [ C N - ] + 0.0295 log [ C N O - ] - 0.059 log [ OH ]

Cyanide can also be oxidised in bulk solution by dissolved oxygen.

EXPERIMENTAL

The electrowinning cell used in this work was similar in design to the Zadra
cell [ 6 ], and is illustrated in Fig. 1.
 307

I'D (3

Liquo~l
out _ ~
II1

Il l
Liquor in
p . . . . .

Fig. 1. Electrowinning cell: l, PTFE cell head; 2, reference electrode; 3, glass cylinder cell; 4, stain-
less steel anode; 5, steel wool cathode; 6, permeable polypropylene membrane; 7, stainless steel
feeder electrode; 8, porous polypropylene distributor; 9, Luggin capillary.

Stainless steel wool ( BET surface area = 0.0705 m2/g) was packed in a cylin-
drical cathode, electrical contact being made via a stainless steel rod feeder
electrode. The stainless steel plate anode was separated from the cathode by a
permeable polypropylene membrane (Propex 46k) which also minimised the
ingress of anodically evolved oxygen into the cathode compartment to prevent
re-oxidation of the gold deposit via a corrosion-type mechanism.
The cell had a total volume of 0.35 1 (70 mm diameter by 90 mm) with a
cathode volume of 0.31 1. Two litres of leach liquor were treated in each test.
The pure liquor used in the initial tests was made up to contain 1 to 5 mg/1 Au,
0.1 M N a O H and 0 to 0.02 M NaCN. The composition of the model leach liquor
308

TABLE 1

Composition (mg/1) of model leach liquor (pH = 11 )

Au 2.4
Ag 0.4
Al 22.0
Ca 1.5
K 29.O
Cu 3.9
Fe 3.6
Zn 3.6
SO42- 193
C03 z- 255
CN- 420

was based on leach tests carried out on a sample of oxidised American gold ore.
The complete analysis is shown in Table 1. The liquor was recirculated through
the cell at a rate of 1.1 1/min by means of a peristaltic pump. Fresh steel wool
was used for each run, with 12.74 to 25.48 g giving a cathode area to cell volume
ratio of 2 5 6 6 - 5132 m-1. The electrolyte was maintained at a temperature of
28°C.
Each test was run for one hour with 4 ml samples being taken every 15 min
and analysed for dissolved gold and free cyanide by atomic absorption and
titration versus ammoniacal potassium iodide respectively [ 9 ]. Solution con-
ductivity was determined by measuring the solution resistance between two 1-
cm 2 platinum electrodes placed 1 cm apart.

E X P E R I M E N T A L RESULTS

1. Pure leach liquor

Figure 2 shows the effect of current on energy consumption (the electrical

energy required to recover 1 kg of gold), cyanide destruction and gold recovery
from a 5 rag/1 gold cyanide solution. The optimum current was 400 mA: this
gave 96.5% recovery in one hour with 8% cyanide destruction and an energy
consumption of 112 kWh/kg. The current efficiency (defined as the percent-
age of charge passed which results in gold deposition) was low at 0.33%. This
reflects the low value of the diffusion limiting current for gold electrodeposi-
tion from these dilute solutions. Most of the charge is dissipated in hydrogen
evolution.
Figure 3 shows the effect of free cyanide concentration on cell performance
at the optimum current. It shows that recovery decreased with increasing free
cyanide. This was due to the accompanying cathodic shift in the reversible
potential for gold deposition - - see eqn. (1).
 309

100

80
F NaCN
Time
5x10 -3 M
60 min
60 Flowrate 1.1 I min -1
Area/Volume ratio 2566 m"1
40 Initial (Au) 5 mg/I

• Cyanide destruction %
20 Energy consumption
kWh / k g
wt % Recovery

~-~
.30t 2o

10
I -'-4

13

1200"

c 1000"
~=~ 6oo
~'- 600-
oJ=
o~ 400-
200- J
LU
200 400 600 800 1000
Current / mA

Fig. 2. Effect of current on energy consumption, cyanide destruction and gold recovery for a pure
leach liquor.

High recoveries were obtained when treating very dilute leach liquors using
an electrode area to cell volume ratio of 5132 m -1 and a current of 500 mA
giving 96.3 and 96.1% recovery in one hour from 1 and 2 mg/l Au solutions,
respectively. This corresponds to energy consumptions of 804 and 402 kWh/kg.

2. Model leach liquor

When treating the model leach liquors (those made up to replicate the com-
positions of real heap leach liquor) additional factors come into play:
• (i) The model liquor contains more free cyanide and, as shown in Fig. 3,
this decreases gold recovery.
• (ii) The pH of heap leach liquors is typically 10-11, whereas the pH of the
pure liquor was 13. The reduced pH of the model liquor could anodically shift
the hydrogen evolution potential - - see eqn. (2) - - such that more charge goes
to hydrogen evolution.
 310

100-

Time = 6 0 min
98- O Current = 400 mA
Area/Volume ratio = 3849 m-1
Flowrate = 1.1 I rain-1
96.
Initial (Au) = 5 mg/I

94

92-

90-
n-

*~ 8 8

86 ¸

84-

82-

80- i , , ,
o ~, ~ 12 18 2o
NaCN/mM

Fig. 3. Effect of free cyanide concentration on gold recovery from a pure leach liquor.

• (iii) The conductivity (K) of the model liquor is less than that of the pure
liquor because of its lower pH. This may decrease the electroactive cathode
volume (the volume of cathode within which a sufficient cathode/solution
potential difference (Er) exists to plate gold) due to a decrease in the distance
(L) across which the solution phase potential changes. This is illustrated sche-
matically in Fig. 4.
Newman and Tiedemann [ 7 ] describe the effect of solution conductivity on
electrode utilisation by the following relationship:
K
L=~ErB (6)

where I represents the maximum current density which would result if there
were complete deposition of all the gold entering the cell, and B is a dimen-
sionless term depending on outlet concentration, electrode thickness and
porosity, fluid velocity, electrode area and local mass transfer and diffusion
coefficients. Therefore, as the electroactive volume decreases with L, so it
decreases with •.
 311

3-D Cathode
0

Highly Membrane
conducting
electolyte

Membrane
condtkting
electrolyte

G Electroactive cathode volume

d.m=Potential drop through steel wool

k =Solution phase potential drop
m,,+, =Local potential difference at
metallsolution interface
Ed= Potential difference required for
gold deposition

Fig. 4. Effect of electrolyte conductivity on potential distribution in cathode compartment.

It should also be noted the E, will change as the gold concentration decreases
and it could be expected that in a batch system in which liquor is recirculated
to the cell the distance L and hence the electroactive volume would be subject
to change.
(iv) The presence of in the be
detrimental to gold
5 shows the results obtained with the model liquor, where curve
refers to of the in Table 1.
at pH a heap leach operation. However,
gold recovery was greatly increased if pH was to by the
of sodium
be due to the in the
pH and/or of t.he
To differentiate an excess of supporting
(1 M Na,SO,) was to the a solution of
of pH. A in 5 shows that, at pH
10-l 1, gold to 32-42% on increasing
of the to 0.13
312

0.14 ~3-1cm-1
100- ~=~__ ~O.l~_lcm. 1
A + 1 M Na2SO 4 ///O.05Q'lcm -1
90- ---0---- BNoaddedelectrolyte / // I

Current = 1 A / I
80- Area / volume ratio = 3 8 4 9 m -1
Initial (Au) = 2.
70-

60.

.E 50-

S
~ 40-

30- 0.13 ¢~-1cm"1 /

/
20 [
/
10- /

0.003 o-lcm-l,~ ~ , J~O.O07

0-1cm-1
0
1'o 1'1 1'2 1'3 1'4
pH

Fig. 5. Relative influence of pH and solution conductivity on gold recovery from a model leach
liquor.

However, the figure also shows that solution pH still played a dominant role
in determining gold recovery, the highest being obtained at pH ~>13. At pH 13,
silver recovery was 99.8% and metals other than gold did not plate out.
Thus, the results show solution pH to be an important parameter governing
gold recovery from dilute solutions by direct electrowinning. This is a feature
little considered by other workers; only Elges et al. [4 ] refer to the influence
of sodium hydroxide concentration.
To study the influence of impurities on gold recovery, a number of impure
leach liquors were made up. Each contained 5 mg/1 Au, 0.025 wt% NaCN, 0.1
M NaOH and a given concentration of one impurity. The presence of anionic
impurities such as SO42- and CO32- increased solution conductivity, thus
reducing cell voltage and assisting gold recovery. However, C N - decreased
recovery.
The influence of cations commonly found in heap leach liquors is summar-
ised in Table 2, though it should be noted that impurity concentrations as high
 313

TABLE 2

Effect of impurities on gold electrowinning

Area/volume ratio = 3849 m- 1; pH = 13; NaCN -- 5 mM; initial Au = 5 mg/1; current = 400 mA

Added impurity (rag/l) % Gold recovery in 1 h

None 98.0
10 Ag 99.8
10 Ni 98.6
10 Cu 93.0
10 Zn 81.7
10 Fe 86.0
10 Hg 45.1
100 Ni 94.7
100 Cu 31.3
100 Zn 17.5
100 Fe 71.8
100 A1 97.4
250 Zn 17.4
250 A1 97.5
10 Hg~ 85.8
aCurrent = 1.000 A.

as 100 mg/1 are r a r e l y e n c o u n t e r e d in practice. T h e s e high levels were only

c o n s i d e r e d to allow t h e sensitivity of direct e l e c t r o w i n n i n g to m e t a l i m p u r i t i e s
to be evaluated.
T h e p r e v i o u s results indicate t h a t low c o n c e n t r a t i o n s ( < 4 mg/1) of iron,
zinc a n d c o p p e r h a d little effect on gold recovery. H o w e v e r , r e c o v e r y d e c r e a s e d
w h e n the levels of iron, zinc a n d c o p p e r were increased: gold r e c o v e r y d e c r e a s e d
to 86.0, 81.7 a n d 93.0%, respectively, in t h e p r e s e n c e of 10 mg/1 Fe, Zn a n d Cu.
M e r c u r y was p a r t i c u l a r l y d e t r i m e n t a l to gold recovery. At 400 mA, a recov-
ery of o n l y 45.1% gold was o b t a i n e d in t h e p r e s e n c e o f 10 mg/1 Hg. R e c o v e r y
was i m p r o v e d by o p e r a t i n g at h i g h e r c u r r e n t s (85.8% Au r e c o v e r y at 1 A ) .
W h e n the c o n c e n t r a t i o n o f iron, zinc or c o p p e r greatly e x c e e d e d t h a t of gold,
r e c o v e r y obviously f u r t h e r decreased. N i c k e l a n d a l u m i n i u m h a d little effect
on Au r e c o v e r y because b o t h m e t a l s require h i g h e r c a t h o d i c d e p o s i t i o n p o t e n -
tials t h a n gold.

ELECTROCHEMICAL ENGINEERING ASPECTS

1. Reactor models

Since one o f the aims o f this work was to m a k e an i n v e s t i g a t i o n of the pos-

sibilities for c o m m e r c i a l d e v e l o p m e n t o f dilute electrowinning, an analysis of
314

the experimental data was made to derive mass transfer coefficients which
could be used for full-scale cell design. This analysis was based on the appli-
cation of simple reactor models adapted from conventional chemical reaction
engineering. Thus, Pickett [8] has shown that for an electrochemical reactor
operating with plug flow and in which the electrode process is mass transfer
controlled ( limiting current operation), then

Co=Ci e x p [ - K A ] (7)

In eqn. (7), Ci and Co are the reactor inlet and outlet concentrations
(expressed in any consistent mass units) achieved with one pass through the
reactor at a flowrate of N. The electrode area is A and K is the average mass
transfer coefficient for the whole electrode, assumed to be equipotential.
This is analogous to the equation for a plug flow reactor in which a first order
chemical reaction takes place with a rate constant of r during a time of t, the
mean residence time:
Co=Ci e x p [ - r t] (8)
The term A/N in eqn. (7) is analogous to 1/t in eqn. (8) and is the space
velocity of electrolyte through ( in the case of a porous electrode ) the electroac-
tive portion of the cell or reactor.
For an electrowinning cell in which metal ions in solution are deposited as a
metal film, the metal recovery, or reactor conversion, is defined as
(C i -C o)
f- (9)
Co
Substitution of eqn. (9) in eqn. (7) leads to the simple design equation

f= 1-exp -K~ (10)

which can be used to design a plug flow cell with a once-through flow of elec-
trolyte provided that K is known. The mass transfer coefficient may be cal-
culated from hydrodynamic theory for standard geometry, measured directly
from limiting current studies or deduced from pilot tests on small-scale cells
such as the one used in this work.
The analysis of the cell configuration used in this work corresponds to a
"batch recycle mode", as depicted in Fig. 6. In this case the concentration of
metals decays exponentially throughout a run as the electrolyte is recycled
through the plug flow reactor. An adaptation of the theory which leads to eqn.
(7) can be used to show how the concentration decays throughout a run. The
equation is [8]
 315

Inlet conc. at time t - C I

to -=Co

e ei~ Packed electrode

Plug flow
Equipotential ecirculation

•
Total surface (A)
N)

Stirred reservoir
volume (Vr)
i=l•
C I =C O Exp(-E1- Exp(--KA 1
~ -t ~~f • Design
plug flow equation for
electrode
with a perfectly mixed
T = V._r r e s e r v o i r in a recycle loop
N
K = Mass transfer coefficient

Fig. 6. Reactor model used to analyse laboratory results.

Ci=Coexp{-[1-exp(-KA) tl} (11)

The variables have the same meanings as before, except that Ci is the concen-
tration at time t and Co is the concentration at t--0. In addition t represents
the elapsed time and r is the mean residence time in the external pump res-
ervoir. Equation (11) was used to calculate mass transfer coefficients from the
experimentally determined decay curves, examples of which are shown in Fig.
7.

2. Derivedresults
At a superficial cell solution velocity of 17.36 m/h, the average mass transfer
coefficient ranged between 1.0 and 1.6 ]xm/s, with an arithmetic mean for five
runs of 1.3 ]2m/s. This value is lower than those calculated from the data in
Ref. [2] for small-scale Mintek cells. In that case, coefficients in the range
5-10 Bm/s were calculated after making the assumption that the wire wool used
had the same B E T surface as that used in this work. This cannot be verified
so the calculated results must be regarded as tentative. However, some conclu-
sions can be drawn as follows:
• (a) The measured coefficient is low, but this is to be expected at the extremely
low solution velocities used in the laboratory cell.
• (b) The solution conductivity effects described above provided some evi-
dence of"electrical by-passing" in the laboratory cell, so that not all of the wire
wool was electroactive. This p h e n o m e n o n can be expected in a cell in which
current and solution flow are not in parallel [2 ]. In addition, the cylindrical
cell with single inlets and outlets located on the circumference is prone to mal-
distribution of electrolyte flow, leading to "mechanical by-passing".
316

2.0-~ :L:bel

& 0

~.o-]% • Lab
- J ~ • Model

I I I I I ] I
0 6O
Time (mins)

Fig. 7. Comparison of mode] with laboratory data.

. (c) Figure 7 shows that mass transfer continued with a more or less constant
coefficient to solution concentrations below 0.2 mg/1 of gold. This demon-
strates the feasibility of designing an electrowinning cell to operate at extreme
dilution.

APPLICATION TO DESIGN

It is instructive to consider briefly how the methods outlined above may be

used to calculate the electrode area required for the direct electrowinning of
heap leach liquor. The following data are for an actual heap leach operation in
which gold is leached at the rate of 435 oz/day ( 12.3 kg/day) from an ore heap,
using a liquor circulation of 63 kg/s. This solution has a cyanide content of
0.025% by weight. Since the gold is dissolved in this amount of solution, the
average rise in concentration in the leach solution is approximately 2.5 mg/l.
Assuming that the liquor is sprayed on to the heap with an inlet concentration
of 0.05 mg/1, the required "per-pass conversion" for the electrowinning cells is
from eqn. (9) found to be 0.98 or 98%.
For a commercial Mintek type of cell operating with an average mass trans-
fer coefficient of 7.0/~m/s, eqn. (10) can be used to calculate the required
electrode area. In this case it is about 35000 m 2, This is the total surface area
of the wire wool and will be distributed amongst a large number of cathodes.
Thus, in a commercial cell having cathode dimensions of 0.7 m by 0.7 m with
 317

a thickness of 40 mm, each cathode has a face area of 0.49 m 2 and a volume of
0.0196 m 3. Assuming a typical wool density of 30 kg/m 3, each cathode contains
0.588 kg of wool having a total surface of 41.5 m 2. The required 35000 m 2 of
surface can therefore be obtained with 844 cathodes. These would be arranged
in a large number of parallel cells and would constitute a tank-house type of
operation.
The number of cells is calculated as follows. Since we wish to process the
heap leach liquor flow in one pass, the flow to the tank house is 227 m3/h. The
chosen mass transfer coefficient corresponds to a typical cathode of face area
0.49 m 2 with 5 m3/h solution flowing through it. This gives a superficial veloc-
ity of 5/0.49--10.2 m/h, hence the required total face area of cathode is
227/10.2 = 22.2 m 2, corresponding to 45 cathodes normal to the solution flow.
We thus need 45 "lines" of cathodes in parallel and each line requires
844/45 = 19 cathodes (to nearest whole number). There is clearly a large num-
ber of configurations of cell which meet this requirement, depending on how
many cathodes are put in series in each cell or "tank". The design is compli-
cated since we also are free to chose the velocity and hence face area or cathode
dimensions. ( Higher velocities give higher mass transfer coefficients and lower
required surface area but higher pumping costs. ) This example does not illus-
trate this optimisation and is only really intended to indicate the method of
calculating the required electrode area in a simple way.
Two assumptions have been made in this calculation (in addition to those
made in the derivation of the basic equations ) ; firstly, that mass transfer coef-
ficients for dilute electrowinning will be as high as those found in the conven-
tional operation of Mintek-type cells at higher concentrations, and, secondly,
that 0.05 mg/1 is a reasonable level for the concentration of gold in a liquor
being recycled to an ore heap.
With regard to the question of cell outlet concentration ( or "barrens return"
concentration) it is useful to make a sensitivity study in which this concentra-
tion is changed b u t in which the mass of gold extracted from the heap is kept
constant. The results of such a study are given in Table 3, from which it can
be seen that the required electrode area drops rapidly as the concentration
increases. In a commercial heap leach operation, high gold concentrations in
the barrens return are unacceptable due to the high volumes of solution
involved; the in-process gold inventory becomes too large and cannot be readily
secured.
A comparison of direct electrowinning against a conventional system using
carbon adsorption, elution and electrowinning showed that the direct system
was more expensive because of the need for a very low cell outlet gold concen-
tration. Approximate data are given in Tables 4 and 5.
There is, however, considerable scope for optimising cell designs to enhance
their low mass transfer coefficients and also to examine applications of direct
318

TABLE 3

Required electrode area as a function of outlet concentration of gold

Outlet gold (mg/1) Required surface (m 2)

0.005 56,000
0.05 35,000
0.1 29,000
0.5 16,000
1.0 11,000
10.0 2,000
100 200
2OO 100

electrowinning to low-volume operations such as the stripping of metal-plating

effluents, in which a higher cell outlet concentration can be allowed.

"FABLE 4

Comparison of costs for carbon versus direct electrowinning

Basis: US dollars, 1984; scale: 500 oz/day (14.2 kg/day) gold recovery

Carbon Dilute electrowinning

Capital cost, $ 1,430,000 2,340,000
Variable costs, $/oz Au 4.02 2.1
Fixed costs, $/oz Au 5.24 9.56

Total costs, $ 9.26 11.66

Yearly cash cost ($) 1,203,800 1,515,800

of operation at
recovery plant
design rate

TABLE 5

Capital cost of direct electrowinning (millions of US dollars, 1984)

Electrowinning cells 1.30

Tank-house equipment 0.40
Buildings 0.64
2.34
 319

CONCLUSIONS

The results of this work show that:

1. Solution pH plays a dominant role in the electrowinning of gold from
dilute cyanide leach liquors using a three-dimensional steel wool cathode. If
the solution pH is maintained at >~13, then high gold recoveries can be obtained
with a relatively low electrical energy consumption. However, even under these
favourable conditions, the current efficiency for the direct electrowinning of
gold from dilute liquors is very low ( ~<0.33% ). This is due to the low value of
the diffusion-limiting current for gold electrodeposition under these conditions.
2. Solution conductivity influences gold electrowinning through its influence
on the electroactive cathode volume; gold recovery increases with increasing
solution conductivity.
3. Gold recovery decreases with increasing free cyanide concentration.
4. Low concentrations ( < 4 mg/l) of zinc, iron and copper have little effect
on the recovery of gold from leach liquors, but recovery decreases in the pres-
ence of >/10 mg/1 Fe, Zn, Cu or Hg.
5. Direct electrowinning was found to be more expensive than a conventional
carbon system for treating heap leach liquors because of the large volumes of
liquor held within the process coupled with the very low outlet gold concentra-
tion demanded. However, direct electrowinning may be applicable to relatively
low-volume operations, such as the stripping of metal plating effluents, where
a higher cell outlet concentration may be tolerated.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

We would like to thank the British Petroleum Company plc for permission
to publish this work.

REFERENCES

1 Filmer, A.O., The Electrowinning of Gold from Carbon in Pulp Eluates, Australian Inst. Min.
Metall., Victoria, Australia, 1982, pp. 49-66.
2 Paul, R.L., Filmer, A.O. and Nicol, M.J., in: Osseo Asare, K. and Miller, J.D. (Eds.), Hydro-
metallurgy Research, Development and Plant Practice, Met. Soc. AIME, 1983, pp. 689-704.
3 Hiskey, J.B., Gold and Silver Heap and Dump Leaching Practice, AIME, 1983, pp. 1-7.
4 Elges,C.H., Wroblewski, M.D. and Eisele, J.A., in: Richardson, P.E., Srinivason, S. and Woods,
R. (Eds.), Proc. Electrochem. Min. Met. Proc., The Electrochemical Society, 1984,pp. 501-512.
5 Mooiman, M.B., Miller, J.D., Hiskey, J.B. and Hendriksz, A.R., in: Hiskey, J.B. (Ed.), Gold
and Silver Heap and Dump Leaching Practice, AIME, 1983, pp. 101-103.
6 Zadra, J.B., Engel, A.L. and Heinen, H.J., U.S. Bur. Mines, Rep. Invest. No. 4843, 1952.
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