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Mining › Metallurgy and Process Design

Mining Cyanidation Technologies

SGS is a leader in cyanidation technologies. We have the robust technologies and recognized staff to ensure you benefit from efficient operations, regulatory compliance and optimal recovery from your gold operation.

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Our respected teams will work with you to design and test all aspects of your cyanide circuit including leaching, destruction, recovery and even cyanide alternatives if needed.

Cyanide Leaching and Alternatives

Cyanide leaching has been the industry standard approach to gold recovery for more than 100 years. SGS professionals use proven approaches and technologies when developing your cyanide leach flowsheet. At the bench scale, we use cyanide bottle rolls to determine leaching parameters and to optimize gold recovery. Based on the information gained through this test, we then establish the most effective cyanide flowsheet for your operation. We are experts in both the time-tested carbon technologies and innovative new resin gold recovery processes.

In some jurisdictions, cyanide cannot be used. In these cases, SGS offers highly effective proven alternative leaching technologies. These include bacterial leaching and thiosulfate leaching.

Cyanide Recovery

Rising costs associated with cyanide consumption and stricter environmental regulations regarding the destruction of cyanide have led to increased interest in cyanide recovery technologies. Many gold recovery operations now include cyanide recovery in their cyanide cycle flowsheet designs to:

  • Reduce the costs of tailings detoxification.
  • Gain the cost advantages of recycling cyanide.
  • Minimize the amount of cyanide that must be transported to site and thus the risk of spill.
  • Increase revenues through the sale of by-products generated by cyanide recovery processes.
  • Comply with environmental regulations.

Cyanide recovery procedures provided by SGS include

  • Acidification, Volatilization, Reneutralization (AVR) process
  • Metallgesellschaft Natural Resources (MNR) process,
  • Sulfidization, Acidification, Recycling and Thickening (SART) process
  • Hannah Process

Cyanide Destruction

The destruction of cyanide after its use in gold processing is a critical environmental activity for most gold operations. SGS has extensive experience designing cyanide destruction circuits into gold recovery flowsheets. Our experts can work with you to select the most cost-effective, environmentally compliant method for your gold operation.

SGS offers a number of strictly controlled, industry standard processes for cyanide destruction. Our metallurgists consider a number of regulatory and operational factors before recommending the best option from our extensive list of possible cyanide destruction processes, which include

  • Alkaline chlorination
  • SO2 -air technologies
  • Hydrogen peroxide process
  • Caro’s acid approach.

SGS provides technical expertise and proven, industry respected technologies to help you manage cyanide in a safe, efficient and environmentally sustainable fashion. Partner with us and know that your operations will grow in a reliable, technically sound fashion acceptable to all stakeholders.