Choosing An Adsorbent To Recover Gold: Factors To Be Considered

Carbon-in-pulp (CIP) is the preferred method of gold recovery 􀀁om cyanided p􀀎lp. However, other gold adsorbents (namely, ton-exchange resms) are being introduced to the industry as they are considered to have several advantages over carbon for the reco􀀃ery of gold. A set of test methods have been developed by the industry to evaluate the quality of different carbons. 􀀓owever, many ?f these tests are not applicable to evaluating ton-exchange resms. Hence, a need has arisen for a method to evaluate the different adsorbents. This paper introduces a philosophy to evaluate an adsorbent that results in an estimation of the capital cost and the operating cost associated with the adsorbent. Tests that have been devel­ oped to evaluate the ability of an adsorbent to adsorb gold (in­solutton . counter-current) and to evaluate the optimum adsorbent for a specific pulp (in-pulp batch) are introduced. A method of converting the test data into an economic dimension is present­ed. Case studies are presented to highlight the discussion.