Thiosulfate leaching is a promising alternative to cyanidation, and the main hindrances for its wide commercial application are the high thiosulfate consumption and the difficult recovery of dissolved gold. In this review, the four solutions to reduce the consumption of thiosulfate, including the control of reaction conditions, the use of additives, the generation of thiosulfate in situ, and the replacement of traditional cupric-ammonia catalysis, are introduced and evaluated after the presentation of background knowledge about thiosulfate consumption. The replacement of cupric-ammonia catalysis with other metals, such as nickel-and cobalt-based catalysts, is proposed. The reason is that it not only reduces thiosulfate consumption observably via decreasing the redox potential of leach solution significantly but also is beneficial to gold recovery mainly owing to eliminating the interference of cuprous thiosulfate [Cu(S 2 O 3 ) 3 ] 5− . Based on the comparative analysis for five common recovery techniques of rare-noble metals from pregnant leach solution, ion-exchange resin adsorption is considered to be the most appropriate to recover aurothiosulfate [Au(S 2 O 3 ) 2 ] 3− because the resin can be employed in the form of resin-in-leach/pulp and, furthermore, is able to be eluted and regenerated simultaneously at ambient temperature. At last, how to reduce the process cost of the resin adsorption technique is discussed. In order to simplify the complex two-stage elution process for loaded resins, the traditional catalysis is suggested to be replaced.

No abstract

Alkali-leaching and acid-leaching were proposed for the dephosphorization of Changde iron ore, which contains an average of 1.12% for phosphorus content. Sodium hydroxide, sulfuriced, hydrochloric and nitric acids were used for the preparation of leach solutions. The results show that phosphorus occurring as apatite phase could be removed by alkali-leaching, but those occurring in the iron phase could not. Sulfuric acid is the most effective among the three kinds of acid. 91.61% phosphorus removal was attained with 1% sulfuric acid after leaching for 20 min at room temperature. Iron loss during acid-leaching can be negligible, which was less than 0.25%.The pH value of solution after leaching with 1% sulfuric acid was about 0.86, which means acid would not be exhausted during the process and it could be recycled, and the recycle of sulfuric acid solution would make the dephosphorization process more economical.

No abstract

No abstract