Use of cavitation to enhance the leaching kinetics of refractory gold ores

Abstract

The cyanidation process for refractory gold ores has been the subject of numerous investigations aimed at improving gold recovery and leaching kinetics. From recent literature investigations, hydrodynamic cavitation has been found to be a promising new approach which may modify the cyanidation processes. In this study, this approach results in the enhancement of mass transfer kinetics in multiphase fluid streams due to impacting two pulps streams against one another in a vessel called the Jetleach reactor. In this work, the Jetleach reactor was applied to a flotation concentrate from a South African gold tailings processing plant (Ergo) where an improvement of almost 10% in gold recovery was obtained while decreasing cyanide and oxygen consumption by almost 8% and 50%, respectively. The main reason for the improvement is surmised to be due to the generation of micro-cavitation which improves the mass transfer of oxygen and cyanide within the slurry.