Adsorption of polythionates and thiosulfate on strong base anion exchange resins

Thiosulfate leaching is an alternative process to cyanidation for recovering gold from ores. Resin in pulp has been suggested as a possible operation for the recovery of gold from the thiosulfate leach solutions. The aim of this work is to investigate the adsorption of polythionates and thiosulfate...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Muslim, Abrar, Pareek, Vishnu, Tade, Moses, Jeffrey, M., Zhang, H.
Format: Conference Paper
Published: 2009
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/15397
Description
Summary:Thiosulfate leaching is an alternative process to cyanidation for recovering gold from ores. Resin in pulp has been suggested as a possible operation for the recovery of gold from the thiosulfate leach solutions. The aim of this work is to investigate the adsorption of polythionates and thiosulfate on strong based anion exchange resins, as they are the competing species for the adsorption of gold. The kinetics of thiosulfate, trithionate and tetrathionate load is first order, approaching equilibrium. The equilibrium constants for the adsorption reactions were obtained using the experimental data. The use of the rate constants and equilibrium constants for adsorption allows the resin in pulp process to be effectively modelled.