Process design for gold ores: A diagnostic approach

Much careful work and thought are needed from the time an ore is discovered until a marketable product is produced. Most often, incomplete or imprecis e information on the deposit must be used to decide to continue or not with the development and implementation of a project. This paper presents a dia gnostic methodology to deal with gold projects at the preliminary stages. W e have developed "lntelliGold"-an expert system for gold process design. A knowledge base on gold mineralogy and processing is used to provide the use r with feasibility information on a given gold ore. Decision-makers can hav e a preliminary, yet reliable view of the mineral processing project, based on lab results supported by mineralogical characteristics, operational iss ues and economic analysis. (C) 1999 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.