JSC “Polymetal Engineering”, Saint Petersburg, Russia:

N. V. Vorobev-Desyatovskiy, Head of Hydrometallurgy Department, e-mail: vdesjatovsky@polymetal.spb.ru

SRK Consulting, Moscow, Russia:
D. V. Ermakov, Senior Concentration Engineer

This article describes the methods of reduction of reagents’ toxic impact on environment at gold processing plants, utilizing ultra-fine grinding with gold cyanide dissolution. In cases where such operation includes a downstream tailings facility with water recycling, the most practical solution is complete and (or) partial recycling of cyanide. Another environmentally promising method is semi-dry disposal of cyanidation cake. There are also described physical and chemical processes, carried out with cyanide compounds experience in liquid tailing dump phase, depending on pH values and temperature.
Advantages and drawbacks of reverse osmosis for treatment of discharge cyanide solutions are shown together with issues, associated with that method. There are also reviewed the major methods, used for cyanide recovery from waste solutions (AVR, Golconda, Cyanisorb), as well as technologies, applied in treatment of cyanide solutions, containing high concentrations of Cu (I) (SART, NMR) and their varieties.

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