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The total weight Recovery of gold from the Mouteh Gold Mine tailings dam by
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Berg, A. Van Den Meeuwis, J. M. Annegarn, Harold John |
| Copyright Year | 2009 |
| Abstract | The Mouteh Gold Mine, located 270 km to the south-west of Tehran, and 10 km north-west of Mouteh village, is the main gold producer in Iran, with an annual production of 300 kg Au. The deposit is estimated to have 1 222 000 tons of ore reserve at an average grade of 2.5 g/t of gold. Mineralogical analysis of the ore shows that the ore is refractory and contains free gold and gold telluride associated with pyrite (and chalcopyrite) (Figure 1). Gold grains are very small, mostly 5 μm, and are seldom larger than 15 μm in diameter. The Mouteh processing plant is fed with sulphide and oxidized ore from nearby mines (Sinjedeh and Chah Khatun). The nominal plant capacity is 600 tpd. The run-of-mine ore is crushed and ground to 80% finer than 75 μm, before being sent to the conditioning and cyanidation tanks. In the primary leaching stages, lime and sodium cyanide are added to the pulp (BHP Engineering 1991). Conventional carbon-in-leach (CIL) cyanide leaching is used to recover the contained gold. The carbon is recovered from the leaching tanks by using cylindrical screens with 0.8 mm round aperture. The loaded carbon is stripped and the resultant solution is sent to the gold room, which includes the electrowinning and the smelting units. The annual production of this unit is about 300 kg of gold and 36 kg of silver. The residue from the leaching circuit is pumped to the tailings dam (BHP Engineering 1991). Studies show that the gold content of the tailings residue is more than the expected level (0.1 g/t). Gold in pyrite tends to be slow leaching and due to the short residence time, the recovery of the pyritic gold component is low (Muir et al., 2005). Using the metallurgical data from the Mouteh processing plant, it is estimated that the existing tailings dam contains around 778.5 kg of gold (0.5 g/t), while the average assay of gold in the feed to the plant is 2.5 g/t. The residue tailings have been shown to be a source of 'cheap gold', since the mining and comminution costs have already been incurred. Advances in processing technology could provide extra gold and additional benefits, such as reducing environmental liabilities, may also follow from this exercise (Muir et al., 2005). In this work the retreatment of the gold residue tailings from the Mouteh Gold Mine, a mixture of sulphide and non sulphide minerals, was investigated. The test work included flotation, roasting and leaching, for the effective recovery of gold from the Mouteh tailings. Representative samples from the Mouteh tailings dam were obtained. The objectives of the sampling were to quantify the potential of the deposit and to characterize the site and the resource material. After an initial sampling, 33 sampling holes, of 1 metre depth, were dug in the tailings dam. Samples from different depth were taken. The minimum weight of each sample was around 3.35 kg. The total weight Recovery of gold from the Mouteh Gold Mine tailings dam |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | http://www.scielo.org.za/pdf/jsaimm/v109n7/04.pdf |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | http://www.scielo.org.za/pdf/jsaimm/v111n5/04.pdf |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
