GOLD RECOVERY WITH SOLVENT SUBLATION FROM CHLORIDE SOLUTIONS

Solvent sublation (SS) has been investigated for separating gold from dilute chloride solutions using hexadecyltrimethylammonium bromide (HT MAB) both as collector and surfactant. The composition of organic and aqueous phases, and operating conditions such as gas flowrate and aera tion time were studied. As a result, 10% 2-octanol in kerosene with 0. 05 M Aliquat 336 was chosen as the organic phase. It is shown that gol d can be separated quantitatively from a solution with only 10 ppm Au, with enrichment of 20. Comparisons to ion flotation (IF) and solvent extraction (SX) were also made. SS was found to be more effective than IF. SX is a little more effective than SS, but it takes as long as 24 h for phase disengagement, compared to < 3 min for SS.