A comparative study of gold refractoriness by the application of QEMSCAN and diagnostic leach process

Lastly, the two samples were pretreated by (1) roasting, and (2) atmospheric oxidation to oxidize sulfide minerals and render the samples more amenable to cyanide leaching. The gold recoveries of the roasting calcines by cyanidation were 93% and 76% for samples 1 and 2, respectively. The cyanidation of the atmospheric oxidation residues provided a greater gold recovery for both sample 1 (96%) and sample 2 (85%). Gold recovery for sample 1 was underestimated by QEMSCAN, however the gold recovery values were estimated well by DL.