One of the most commonly used pre-treatments prior conventional cyanidation is the biooxidation. This technical is a biological process capable of promote solubilization of metals such as copper, iron through the oxidative action of microorganisms in metal sulfides and it is applied as a pretreatment in the cyanidation process to reduce free cyanide consumption making this a feasible and economic process. Thus, the aim of this work was to study the best biotechnology route for the pretreatment of the gold ore in order to reduce cyanide consumption during the convencional cyanidation and increasing the gold recovery. For this purpose, biological tests has been investigated at laboratory scale on a gold ore sample coming from Estado do Amapá, Brazil (90 g/ton). Bacterial cultures utilised in the biological tests of 20 days consisted of Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans-LRe Acidithiobacillus thiooxidans-LR. The biooxidated samples were submitted to cyanidation tests for gold recovery and tests of consumption of cyanide. Experimental studies demonstrate that after 24h leaching time by direct cyanidation, the gold recovery was 93% (32 mg/L) with a cyanide consumption of 2,84 kg.t-1, while the best gold extraction between biooxidated samples was from bioreactor R2 with 87% (30 mg/L), and the cyanide consumption of 2,64 kg.t-1. Experimental results have shown the technical feasibility of the biooxidative prior to convencional leaching for for reducing the consumption of reagent cyanide.
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