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Treatment of Refractory Gold Ores

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Abstract

Problem ores that yield low (say less than 80%) gold recovery by cyanidation when “normally ground” are defined as refractory. The term, as well as the technical methods used to treat such ores, are relatively new. Rose and Newman’s very comprehensive book, The Metallurgy of Gold, does not even contain the term refractory in its latest, fourth edition (1937).1 Dorr and Bosqui’s Cyanidation and Concentration of Gold and Silver (2d edition, 1950) has a brief chapter (XIII) on “Cyanicides and Refractory Ores,” with only four pages devoted to refractory ores. Gold Metallurgy in South Africa, edited by R. J. Adamson and published by the Chamber of Mines of South Africa (1952), contains about six pages with meaningful contents on “Refractory Properties of the Ores and their Treatment.”

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© 1991 Van Nostrand Reinhold

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Yannopoulos, J.C. (1991). Treatment of Refractory Gold Ores. In: The Extractive Metallurgy of Gold. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-8425-0_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-8425-0_5

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4684-8427-4

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