Grant: Engage Grants Program

A common problem in gold ore processing is that the abrasive mixing conditions in the CIP and CIL tanks causes the generation fine carbon particles that contain adsorbed gold. These fine particles represent a processing problem because they cannot continue to be employed in the process, since any further size reduction will result in their reporting to the tailings (along with the gold contained within them), and they cannot be stripped, since they will either wash out of or cause blockages in the stripping column. As a result, these carbon fines are often collected at safety screens of middling size and sold at a discount to a third party for ultimate gold recovery. As such, a process for on-site recovery of gold from carbon fines is desirable. In this regard, it should then be possilbe to fix carbon fines in Water Expandable Polystyrene-Activated Carbon, WEPSAC, ion-exchange beads for stripping as if they were coarse particles of activated carbon. The research project will focus on establishing an on-site process for fixing activated carbon fines in WEPSAC ion-exchange beads that yields optimal performance in terms of stripping kinetics and ultimate gold recovery using industrial solutions and conditions. The impact of five variables in the production of the beads will be evaluated in terms of their impact on bead performance in standard batch stirred-tank tests using a factorial-design methodology: 1. Ratio of Activated Carbon to Polystrene, 2. Extrusion Temperature, 3. Mixer Speed, 4. Pellet Size, and 5. Foaming.