Experiment of Gold and Silver Extraction from Cyanide Tailings by Melting Chlorination

Abstract

Cyanide tailings produced in gold smelting process contain a large number of heavy metals and cyanides, which are more and more harmful to the environment. In order to reduce environmental pollution, valuable metals from cyanide tailings are recovered. The amount of calcium chloride, chlorination time, the way of adding calcium chloride and other factors on the influence of gold and silver extraction by chlorination were studied by using the raw material of cyanide tailings with melting chlorination process in this paper, and how to reduce the melting chlorination temperature was explored, and a comprehensive experiment was carried out under the best conditions. The results showed that when the chlorination temperature is 1500°C, the chlorination time is 1 h, and the addition amount of CaCl2 is 7%, the volatilization rate of gold is 85.38%, the content of gold in slag is 1.83 g/t, the volatilization rate of silver is 77.36%, and the content of silver in slag is 4.12 g/t; when the chlorination temperature is 1500°C, 7% CaCl2 is added, and the chlorination time is 15 min, the volatilization rate of gold is 87.78%, the content of gold in slag is 1.23 g/t, the volatilization rate of silver is 59.40%, and the content of silver in slag is 7.39 g/t; the addition of 5% CaO can change the slag type, reduce the chlorination temperature by 50~100°C, increase the volatilization rate of gold and silver slightly, and decrease the content of gold and silver in slag; when CaCl2 is added in five times, the volatilization rate of gold increases to 95.53%, the content of gold in slag decreases to 0.56g/t, the volatilization rate of silver increases to 77.80%, and the content of silver in slag decreases to 4.04 g/t; 7% CaCl2 was added in five times, and the melting chlorination time was 15 min. the amount of CaO was 5%, and the melting chlorination temperature was 1450°C, the gold volatilization rate is 95.69%, and the gold content of slag is 0.54 g/t, the silver volatilization rate is 77.06% and the silver content of slag is 4.20 g/t.