Thesis (MTech (Chemical engineering)--Cape Technikon, Cape Town, 2001 / Over the years the carbon-in-pulp technology has been refined to become the highly
efficient process that is used in our present-day system of recovering dissolved gold
from cyanide leached pulps. The efficiency of a CIP circuit mainly depends on the
effectiveness ofthe adsorption section as it not only determines the amount of soluble
gold lost in the residues, but also indirectly affects the function of the other processes
in the plant. Research in this area has declined over the past few years as a result of a
decrease in the gold price. It is now more than ever important to investigate the
operating conditions ofthe adsorption process to ensure that a highly effective system
is maintained.
The adsorption of gold cyanide onto activated carbon is to a large extent dependent on
maintaining operating conditions well above those of equilibrium. The Freundlich and
the Langmuir isotherms have been used by many researchers to describe the
equilibrium conditions of the adsorption process. The general practice in the carbonin-
pulp technology is to use an isotherm for the prediction of a circuit's performance.
As confidence has increased in the reliability of these predictions, it has become
important to acquire knowledge of the equilibrium condition that is driving the
process. Previous research findings have indicated that the equilibrium isotherm of
gold cyanide adsorption onto activated carbon is influenced by changes in the
adsorption conditions down the adsorption train. This equilibrium or isotherm shift
may lead to errors in the prediction of gold adsorption rates, which results in the filct
that the simulations of the performance of the CIP circuits are not reliable.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:cput/oai:localhost:20.500.11838/902 |
| Date | January 2001 |
| Creators | Burnett, Hannelene Jo-Anne |
| Publisher | Cape Technikon |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Rights | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/za/ |
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