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Gold/Mining/Energy : ECHARTERS
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To: Al Cern who wrote (2580)5/6/1998 1:56:00 PM
From: E. Charters  Read Replies (2) of 3744
 
The most popular way is to autoclave then cyanide. Roasting is out of favour as the permits for smelter stack emissions are hard to get especially for arsenides which can be tamed in the autoclave process.

Biooxidation has yet to see a major project with proven economics although you always hear about trials.

There are other gas based methods too that are being tried again.

Basically you are correct. The expense is still higher.

Kerr Addison used to roast the pyrite which was refractory to get 15% of their gold which was the economic key. They used this exothermic process to heat the mill in the winter adding to economics. Denial of a roasting permit in the 80's made the ore uneconomic. They had thought of autoclave but a lot of things conspired to make these engineering changes go by the board.

EC<:-}
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