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Selective gold extraction from copper anode slime with an alcohol

a technology of copper anode slime and alcohol, applied in the direction of improving process efficiency, etc., can solve the problems of high solubility in the aqueous phase, complicated slime processing, and serious drawbacks

Inactive Publication Date: 2011-04-14
AUSTRALIAN NUCLEAR SCI & TECH ORGANISAT
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  • Summary
  • Abstract
  • Description
  • Claims
  • Application Information

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0011]It is the object of the present invention to substantially ove

Problems solved by technology

The processing of the slimes is complicated by the impurities present such as Te, Se, Pb, As and Bi.
In the Kennecott process, chlorination is applied to the decopperised slimes, and gold is extracted from solution by dibutyl carbitol, a solvent which suffers from some serious drawbacks, one of which is its high solubility in the aqueous phase.
The Minataur™ Process has been applied to the gold mud, but has not been tested in solutions with the higher levels of impurities generated by direct treatment of decopperised slimes.
DBC has high selectivity for gold but suffers from the following drawbacks:The phase separation in extraction for DBC is very slow, requiring very long settling rates;DBC has a high solubility in the aqueous phase (0.3% or 3000 mg / L).
This introduces solids in the strip circuit, which may result in crud and requires a three phase separation step.

Method used

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  • Selective gold extraction from copper anode slime with an alcohol
  • Selective gold extraction from copper anode slime with an alcohol
  • Selective gold extraction from copper anode slime with an alcohol

Examples

Experimental program
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Effect test

example 1

Selectivity of Reagent for Au over Po-210

[0111]The leach liquor produced from the oxidative chlorination of decopperised slimes as described above was used for the following tests. The leach liquor was diluted to ˜160 mg / L Au in a series of solutions with varying hydrochloric acid concentrations (1-8 M HCl). The solutions were then contacted in separate tests with the same volume of organic solution. Two types of organic solutions were tested:[0112]i) 50% by volume of isodecanol (Exxal®10) in Escaid 500 (a low aromatic content hydrocarbon diluent)[0113]ii) 50% by volume of 2-ethyl hexanol in Escaid 500

The percentage extraction of Au and Po-210 as a function of HCl concentration is presented in Table 3 and it can be seen that provided the HCl concentration is controlled between 3-5 M, high Au extraction is achieved with high rejection of Po-210 to the residue.

TABLE 3Typical composition of anode slimes2-ethyl Hexanolisodecanol% Extraction% ExtractionHCl (M)Au210PoHCl (M)Au210Po1.0161....

example 2

Au Recovery and Purification with Solvent Extraction

[0114]Leach liquor obtained from oxidative chlorination of decopperised anode slimes containing 4.1% Au to cation ratio in solution was treated as follows. The leach liquor was contacted in a batch counter-current mode with an organic solution containing 50 vol. % isodecanol in Escaid 300 diluent in 4 extraction stages. Five cycles were carried out in order to ensure that that equilibrium had been reached. An A:O ratio (i.e. leach liquor to organic solution) of 4.5 was used. The feed to the solvent extraction process contained 6.5 g / L Au and the loaded organic obtained contained 30.3 g / L Au. Gold extraction of >96% was obtained. The loaded organic analysis is presented in Table 4, is and indicates an upgrade of Au relative to the major impurities, Se, Te, As and Sb from 4.1% to 82%. The loaded solvent was submitted to a further 7 stages of counter-current scrubbing with an hydrochloric acid solution, resulting in a further upgrade ...

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Abstract

The invention relates to a method for recovering gold from an acid digest of a gold-containing copper anode slime. The acid digest is selectively extracted with an alcohol having low miscibility with water. Gold is then recovered from the resulting alcoholic extract.

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD[0001]The present invention relates to recovery of gold from copper anode slimes.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0002]Anode slimes derived from the electrorefining of anode copper contain significant amounts of gold and silver. The processing of the slimes is complicated by the impurities present such as Te, Se, Pb, As and Bi. The methods adopted in commercial operations for recovering gold and silver from such feeds depend largely on the individual feed compositions, but generally involve leaching to remove copper and in some cases to tellurium. Roasting and / or smelting are commonly used to control lead and selenium. Silver is then recovered by electrolysis and gold is recovered last by electrorefining.[0003]Oxidative chlorination of decopperised anode slimes is an attractive processing alternative, in that it offers the opportunity of separating silver and gold early in the processing, leading to decreased gold lock-up time and potentially to a simpler totally hydrometa...

Claims

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Application Information

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IPC IPC(8): C22B11/00C22B3/10
CPCC22B3/0009C22B3/10C22B11/06C22B7/007C22B11/042C22B3/44C22B3/262Y02P10/20
Inventor SOLDENHOFF, KARIN
Owner AUSTRALIAN NUCLEAR SCI & TECH ORGANISAT