The separation process of gold bearing ores depends on the occurrence state and embedding characteristics of gold and other valuable components in the ore, as well as the reserve scale and plant construction conditions of the deposit.
Any kind of gold bearing ore has its own characteristics. Even in the same deposit, the deep and shallow ore properties are different, so the separation methods will be different. The reasonable process flow must be determined through small-scale tests or expanded tests.
When determining the separation process flow, the following points should be paid attention to:
For gold bearing ores containing large gold (>0.1mm), gravity separation or mercury mixing operations should be set up to recover as soon as possible, so as to avoid the loss and dispersion of this part of gold in the separation process and its accumulation in equipment and pipelines.
When the ore contains gold bearing slime or almost no gold bearing slime, in order to effectively recover gold, flotation, gravity separation and cyanidation can be carried out respectively according to the different gold bearing characteristics of slime and ore, which can improve the recovery rate of gold and increase the treatment capacity.
When the gold in the ore is unevenly distributed in thickness, the stage grinding and stage separation process can be used to improve the recovery of gold.
Due to the different occurrence state and embedded particle size of gold in the ore, and the different content of metal minerals associated with gold, using a single beneficiation method often has a low recovery rate, and valuable elements cannot be reasonably utilized. Except that a few ores can obtain a higher gold recovery rate by only using one beneficiation method, the vast majority of ores must use the combined beneficiation and metallurgy process to obtain a higher gold recovery rate.
