Experimental Study on Gold Recovery from Low Gold High-Sulfur Copper Ore

The low-grade associated gold in copper ore is often overlooked to recover,due to its difficult to enrich to valuation grade.According to the low gold high-sulfur copper ore,which contains 1.84% of Cu,11.09% of S,and 0.12×10-6of Au,P10 is taken as collector for copper and gold,sulfuric acid as activator and butylxanthate as collector for sulfur.A closed-circuit flotation test was conducted at a low alkalinity,which a copper concentrate are produced with content of 20.98% Cu with a recovery of 86.23% and 1.2×10-6Au with a recovery of 74.80%,and sulfur concentrate of 48.9% S with a recovery of 74.47%.Therefore,a comprehensive and efficient recovery of copper,sulfur and gold can be realized.Low alkali separation technology of copper-sulfur,which greatly reduced the amount of activator,is conducive to comprehensive recovery of sulfur and lower processing costs.