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We have 6 guests online| Why is cyanide used in gold mining? |
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| FAQ - General |
| Monday, 19 April 2010 17:56 |
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The growing interest in gold mining amongst a diverse range of companies originates as much in the growing value of gold (one ounce currently demands a price of about 800 dollars) as it does in the recent development of more profitable methods which allow gold extraction from very scattered deposits This is the technique of cyanide leaching.
According to the DuPont Corporation (cited from Alberswerth), it is economically viable to extract gold in quantities as low as 0.01 ounces per ton of earth. This technology has come to replace the use of mercury in gold mining which permits only 60% of the gold to be recovered. This makes it very inefficient in comparison to the more than 97% recovered with the use of cyanide. (The process is one by which the material is mixed with a cyanide solution which in turn separates out the gold from the rest of the material). According to the Gold Institute (Cited from Young, 1993), the production of gold via cyanide leaching increased from 468,284 ounces in 1979 to 9,4 million ounces in 1991. To reach the 1991 levels of production, more than 683 million tons of material were treated with cyanide. |
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