Russian and Chinese scientists new way to reduce gold production costs by 40%
Sputnik News reported that Chemists from Russia working with their Chinese colleagues have come up with a new method for producing gold from ore, reducing extraction costs by upwards of 30-40%, and dramatically decreasing the amount of time needed to do so. Press service of Moscow's National University of Science and Technology Professor Vadim Tarasov explained that "The possibility to introduce our technology into gold production will be affected by [world market] prices for an ounce of gold.”
He added that "Of course, there are even more efficient technologies available which would extract all the gold from ore, but they cost colossal amounts of money, so their introduction into production remains impractical even today.”
Mr Tarasov said that "With our technology, we get 85-90%" of the gold out, "which is a standard and most viable figure.”
Contrary to centuries-old stereotypes about how gold is actually produced, today most of the precious metal is extracted from the ground not in the form of nuggets or gold dust, but through the chemical processing of copper and other ores which contain it.
Gold is extracted from these ores with the help of water and cyanide compounds, which bind to the precious metal. MISiS' press statement explained that while this process allows for almost all the gold from a lump of ore to be extracted, it is, in its traditional form, very time-consuming and expensive – taking at least 100-120 hours, with an ounce of gold (30 grams) costing the equivalent of about $800 dollars to produce.
But scientists from the University, together with their Chinese colleagues, have come up with a new method for chemical extraction, which reduces extraction costs by 30-40%. The method adds ammonia to the cyanide compound. The technology is between four and eight times faster than the standard chemical method, and is far less exposed by unwanted impurities such as copper. This will allow miners to spend much less time, effort and resources to separate gold from copper.
Source : Sputnik News