(5)sart to remove zinc and copper from a silver Merrill Crowe barren leach solution

摘要

The SART process (sulfidization-acidification-recycle-thickening) wasdeveloped more than 15 years ago and in recent years has been applied at anumber of facilities. The vast majority of these facilities, as well as theliterature on the SART process, have focused on the removal of copper fromgold processing circuits. BioteQ has been involved in the design andoperation of a number of these facilities. Building on this experience,BioteQ has recently performed a number of laboratory studies on applyingSART technology to remove zinc, particularly in Merrill Crowe applications.This paper describes the results of one such study, where copper as well aszinc were removed from the BLS of a silver Merrill Crowe circuit. Inaddition to testing conventional SART technology, BioteQ also testedBioSART~(TM), whereby the source of sulfide is changed from chemical(NaHS) to biologically generated H2S. The advantage of BioSART~(TM) is thatthe reagent cost is significantly reduced, thus improving the operatingeconomics of the process. The results of this test work are presented,demonstrating the ability to successfully recover the copper and zinc, bothseparately and in a mixed concentrate, as well as regenerating a highpercentage of the WAD cyanide. The differences between conventionalSART and BioSART~(TM) are explored and the operating and capital costimplications are discussed.