Features of gold cementation in percolation mode by electrolytic zinc powders

The study covers physicochemical features of dendritic zinc powders and their effect on gold cementation from cyanide solutions. Three zinc powders were obtained in a laboratory environment by electroextraction at different conditions, and these powders featured various particle size and specific surface area. The properties of zinc powders obtained and powder currently used for gold cementation were evaluated using SEM (Jeol JSM-6390LA), BET (Gemini VII 2390) and laser diffraction (Sympatec HELOS & RODOS) methods. It is shown that electrolytic powders have high specific surface area (1.3–2.6 times more) and a low bulk density (3.1–3.8 times less), relative to zinc powder currently used for gold cementation. It was found that due to specific physical properties electrolytic powders have low hydraulic resistance, which eliminates the need for inert additives introduced during cementation, increases unit capacity and reduces the load on equipment. Inert additives elimination will additionally increase the gold content in the resulting product. The dendritic morfology of zinc powders obtained compensates high particle size resulting in the high efficiency of gold precipitation. At the long cementation cycle the effective gold deposition area (with gold extraction of more than 97 %) turned out to be shorter for electrolytic powder compared to fine powder currently used. However, in practice, the cementation cycle is always limited by fine powder throughput and it is not possible to achieve the full zinc potential. The resulting cementation product usually contains 25–35 % of unused zinc. These studies show the effectiveness of using electrolytic zinc powder for gold cementation from cyanide solutions.