SGS MINERALS SERVICES TECHNICAL PAPER 2010-04 2010 CYANIDE MANAGEMENT IN THE GOLD INDUSTRY CHRIS A. FLEMING, SENIOR METALLURGICAL CONSULTANT –– SGS The cyanide leaching process, introduced to the gold-mining industry about 120 years ago, was at the forefront of the technological revolution in the industry that saw global gold output rise tenfold in the first half of the 20th century. The cyanidation process, which was cheap and very efficient, allowed ever lower-grade ores to be processed economically, even in the era of gold price fixing at the US$35/oz standard. Its only drawback was its its extreme toxicity, but even this aspect was managed effectively, and the gold industry boasts a remarkable safety record, with very few recorded deaths from accidental ingestion of this potentially dangerous chemical. Until quite recently, the widely accepted practice for handling cyanide in residues was to deposit the gold plant tailings slurry in large dams, and wait for nature to do the work of detoxifying the water. The cyanide ion is thermodynamically unstable in water and breaks down slowly through a natural sunlight- catalyzed, air-oxidation process, producing harmless cyanate ions. This proved to be a cheap and effective method of dealing with waste cyanide for almost a century, and was quite acceptable during an era of less stringent environmental management in most parts of the world. However, this situation began to change in the latter part of the 20th century, and a slew of highly publicised incidents (such as bird and small mammal fatalities from drinking tailings dam water, as well as several tailings dam breaches) have led to the imposition of increasingly onerous environmental regulations. CURRENT TREATMENT Ozone and Caro’s acid (a mixture of This observation, coupled with the fact hydrogen peroxide and concentrated that gold orebodies are becoming more Today, in most mining jurisdictions sulphuric acid) are also effective, but complex and consuming increasing around the world, cyanidation plant more expensive, and are therefore not amounts of cyanide, is forcing the tailings must be treated with chemical commonly used. gold-mining industry to examine more oxidants on the site of the metallurgical effective ways of managing cyanide in its The SO /air process is the most popular plants. operations, and cyanide (as well as most 2 metals) has to be removed from solution choice in most gold plants around the to very low levels, before deposition in world. It generally meets the required The best alternative is to recover tailings dams or any other such storage environmental standards and invariably cyanide from the tailings and recycle it facilities. turns out to be the cheapest method of to leaching. In many cases, the cost of destroying cyanide. recycling cyanide is significantly lower The cyanide ion oxidants that have than the cost of destroying cyanide in the gained widest acceptance in the gold But cyanide oxidation is expensive, tailings and purchasing new cyanide. industry are hydrogen peroxide, chlorine whichever method is selected, and the (or hypochlorite ions), and sulphite ions cost of destroying cyanide is invariably in combination with atmospheric oxygen as high as the cost of purchasing the original cyanide. (the so-called SO2/air process). SGS MINERALS SERVICES TECHNICAL BULLETIN 2010-04 2 The air/HCN gas stream is scrubbed in neutralisation (as in the AVR process) or a caustic solution to convert the HCN as a low-grade solution for heap leaching, back to free cyanide ions for recycling. by direct neutralisation and recycling of Scrubbing in a lime scrubber has been the SART liquor. tested but has not been installed at any of the operating plants, mainly owing The SART process has been successfully to concerns about scaling. The scrubber commercialised at three plants in the last solution is recycled to leaching, and five years, and several new plants are it is possible to build up the cyanide under construction. concentration in this solution to the solubility limit of the sodium or calcium NEW DEVELOPMENTS cyanide salt, although a practical limit of ~100g/L CN is usually used. All of the commercial AVR and SART processes treat solution tailings rather AVR can be applied to solutions or pulps, than pulp, and therefore the cost of solid although solution treatment has been liquid separation must be added to the preferred in all the recent commercial costs of cyanide recovery. installations. This can be a significant capital-cost A more recent development is the burden if the tailings pulp is difficult Sulphidisation, Acidification, Recycling to separate into solid and liquid and Thickening of precipitate process components (as occurs with high clay, (SART). slimy or viscous ores). This is an adaptation of the AVR process, Anion exchange resins can play a and was developed to treat gold plant valuable role in these situations by their CYANIDE RECOVERY tailings solutions that contain high ability to extract cyanide and metal concentrations of copper cyanide. cyanide complexes directly from gold plant tailings pulp via a resin-in-pulp (RIP) A number of processes for recovering An increasing proportion of world gold process. The RIP process is a well- cyanide from gold plant barren solutions production is coming from orebodies developed, industrial process, which or pulps have been developed. Most that contain both copper and gold, and is used for gold and uranium recovery, of the processes require that the most copper minerals react readily with and is readily adaptable to cyanide recoverable cyanide is first converted cyanide, potentially leading to very high recovery, thereby circumventing solid/ to the highly toxic hydrocyanic acid gas cyanide consumption. liquid separation processes. Moreover, (HCN), and concern with the handling conventional, commercial strong-base of this compound has presented the High cyanide consumption associated resins are well-suited to this application. greatest impediment to implementation with this reaction can render the gold of these processes. leaching process uneconomical unless The most common cyanide species in measures are taken to recover the gold plant tailings are free cyanide anions The earliest experience in the mining copper and recycle the cyanide. (usually 100-500mg/ L) and the tricyano industry with cyanide recovery from tailings was the Acidification, The SART process involves adding Volatilisation and Reneutralisation of sulphide ions to the gold tailings, along cyanide process (AVR), which was with acidification of the tailings from practised at the Pachuca silver mine about pH10 to pH4.5. Under these in Mexico and at the Flin Flon mine in conditions, the copper cyanide complex Canada more than 60 years ago. breaks down completely, releasing its cyanide as HCN gas and converting the AVR is still used today and has recently copper to the mineral chalcocite (Cu S). been installed at several other mines 2 around the world. The process involves The Cu S is recovered by thickening acidification of the gold plant tailings 2 and filtration as a high grade, fairly with sulphuric acid, to lower the pH pure copper product (~70% Cu), which from around ten to less than seven. can readily be sold to generate extra Acidification converts the free cyanide revenue. to HCN gas, which is then volatilised by passing a vigorous stream of air bubbles The HCN can be recovered as a high- through the tailings pulp or solution. grade solution by volatilisation and SGS MINERALS SERVICES TECHNICAL BULLETIN 2010-04 3 copper complex, both of which can be When the loaded resin is treated with This chemistry has been known for more extracted directly from pulps by anion sulphuric acid, copper remains in the than 50 years, but the technical challenge exchange resins. resin phase as a precipitate of the in the early days was to find a way to compound, CuCN, and only two moles of economically strip some or all of the As in the SART process, ion exchange cyanide are released per mole of copper. copper off the resin so that the amount resins present the opportunity to not only This fairly unique chemistry has been of copper coming into the plant (as recycle the cyanide associated with the turned to advantage in the Augment and copper cyanide in the tailings) was the copper complex, but to generate revenue Hannah processes, wherein CuCN is same as the amount leaving the plant via the sale of the copper itself. This intentionally precipitated in the pores of (as a strong copper cyanide resin eluate). revenue will offset the operating costs of a conventional strong base resin and, in This technical hurdle has been overcome the cyanide recovery plant in most cases, this form, produces a regenerated resin in the Augment and Hannah processes, and the technology has the potential to that is an efficient adsorbent for free both of which incorporate novel and transform uneconomic orebodies into cyanide ions and soluble copper cyanide. proprietary copper elution processes. viable mines. CUTTING COSTS Cyanide recovery can have a significant impact on the economics of processing high cyanide-consuming copper-gold orebodies. When cyanide destruction is practised in these situations, the operating costs associated with cyanide alone will amount to more than US$2/kg of cyanide used in the process. This cost can be converted into a new revenue stream of up to US$0.50/kg of cyanide used in the process when cyanide is recycled from the tailings and credits from the sale of a Cu2S precipitate are taken into consideration. In addition, the various unit operations needed for a cyanide recovery plant (by ion exchange) require simple equipment, operated under ambient conditions. It is expected that the capital cost will be relatively low, with a short pay-back time of less than two to three years in many cases.