No abstract

The high reactivity of sulfide minerals in alkaline cyanide solutions makes gold cyanidation a multifactorial process controlled by the mineralogy of the host rock and where gold recovery is a complex outcome from gold surface passivation, galvanic interactions between the conducting phases (i.e., Au‐sulfide and sulfide‐sulfide) present in multi‐sulfidic ores and excess cyanide and oxygen consumptions. In this study, we highlight a new methodology using a multilayer packed‐bed gold cyanidation reactor to discriminate the role of gold associations and ore mineralogy in multi‐sulfidic‐ore cyanidation. The proposed system also allows for the investigation of the effects of pre‐oxidation and leads addition strategies and their impact on gold leaching rate in the presence of galvanically associated sulfide‐sulfide systems.