Gold extraction

Gold extraction refers to the processes required to extract gold from its ores. This may require a combination of comminution, mineral processing, hydrometallurgical, and pyrometallurgical processes to be performed on the ore. Gold extraction refers to the processes required to extract gold from its ores. This may require a combination of comminution, mineral processing, hydrometallurgical, and pyrometallurgical processes to be performed on the ore. Gold mining from alluvium ores was once achieved by techniques associated with placer mining such as simple gold panning and sluicing, resulting in direct recovery of small gold nuggets and flakes. Placer mining techniques since the mid to late 20th century have generally only been the practice of artisan miners. Hydraulic mining was used widely in the Californian gold rush, and involved breaking down alluvial deposits with high-pressure jets of water. Hard rock ores have formed the basis of the majority of commercial gold recovery operations since the middle of the 20th century where open pit and or sub-surface mining techniques are used. Once the ore is mined it can be treated as a whole ore using a dump leaching or heap leaching processes. This is typical of low-grade, oxide deposits. Normally, the ore is crushed and agglomerated prior to heap leaching. High grade ores and ores resistant to cyanide leaching at coarse particle sizes, require further processing in order to recover the gold values. The processing techniques can include grinding, concentration, roasting, and pressure oxidation prior to cyanidation. The smelting of gold began sometime around 6000 - 3000 BC. According to one source the technique began to be in use in Mesopotamia or Syria. In ancient Greece, Heraclitus wrote on the subject. According to de Lecerda and Salomons (1997) mercury was first in use for extraction at about 1000 BC, according to Meech and others (1998), mercury was used in obtaining gold until the latter period of the first millennia. A technique known to Pliny the Elder was extraction by way of crushing, washing, and then applying heat, with the resultant material powdered. The solubility of gold in a water and cyanide solution was discovered in 1783 by Carl Wilhelm Scheele, but it was not until the late 19th century, that an industrial process was developed. The expansion of gold mining in the Rand of South Africa began to slow down in the 1880s, as the new deposits being found tended to be pyritic ore. The gold could not be extracted from this compound with any of the then available chemical processes or technologies. In 1887, John Stewart MacArthur, working in collaboration with brothers Dr Robert and Dr William Forrest for the Tennant Company in Glasgow, Scotland, developed the MacArthur-Forrest Process for the extraction of gold ores. By suspending the crushed ore in a cyanide solution, a separation of up to 96 percent pure gold was achieved. The process was first used on a large scale at the Witwatersrand in 1890, leading to a boom of investment as larger gold mines were opened up. In 1896, Bodländer confirmed that oxygen was necessary for the process, something that had been doubted by MacArthur, and discovered that hydrogen peroxide was formed as an intermediate.