Heap Leaching or Flotation? Optimal Processing for Tanzania’s Sulfurized Gold Ore

The photo below shows gold ore material from the Geita area of Tanzania. The raw gold ore looks promising—the grade is good, and there is visible gold. However, this is not oxide gold ore; it is a pure sulfide-type gold ore.

The customer, who is from the UAE, is looking for a good gold mine to invest in and operate. They are interested in heap leaching gold, but this type of raw gold ore is actually more suitable for gold recovery using flotation.

Before starting formal beneficiation, it is best to conduct beneficiation tests to determine the recovery rate. It is recommended to test both leaching and flotation. If the recovery rates for both methods are similar, leaching is preferable, since processing the flotation concentrate requires significant additional costs for export, transportation, and smelting.

The gold ore has a content of 4 ppm, and the customer’s planned capacity is 150 tons per day. For a heap leaching gold plant of this size:

1.The leaching time is at least 24 hours.
2.The adsorption time is at least 48 hours.

Generally, after one week, the first batch of gold-loaded activated carbon can be collected, followed by manual smelting, which takes another 48 hours.
In total, from crushing and grinding to obtaining the gold, about 10 days are needed.

If this timeline is too long, you might consider a small-scale gold leaching plant. In such a setup, the combined leaching and adsorption time (the time for gold to be fully adsorbed from the ore pulp) is about 24 hours.

If you are interested in this plant too, you can freely contact us.

Dasen Mining Machinery has been working on the gold ore recovery for over than 30 years. On this field, we have lots of site processing experience, we did many gold processing projects at oversea. Looking forward your inquiry.

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