SART Process

Rising costs and rising environmental concerns have led to an increased interest in cyanide recovery and recycling in gold processing operations. SART (sulfidization, acidification, recycling and thickening) is an industry standard process that helps to efficiently manage and recycle the cyanide used in the process operation while complying with environmental regulations concerning cyanide destruction. The process was jointly developed by SGS Lakefield and Teck Corporation. SART was developed to treat gold plant tailings solutions that contain high concentrations of coppercyanide. Cyanide recovery has a significant impact on the economics of processing high cyanideconsuming copper-gold orebodies since less cyanide is required overall in the plant. When cyanide is destroyed in a gold recovery operation, the costs and hazards associated with the purchase, delivery and destruction of the reagent represents a substantial portion of total operating costs. This cost can be converted into a new stream of revenue when cyanide and copper are recycled from the tailings and the recovered Cu 2 S is sold as a by-product. At the same time, savings in the purchase and delivery of new cyanide increase the bottom line. As well, the requirement for less cyanide means less is transported to the site. There are four steps in the SART process: 1. Sulfidization Sulfur ions are added to the gold tailings 2. Acidification The pH of the solution is lowered to around 4.5. Under these conditions, the copper cyanide complex breaks down completely, releasing the cyanide as HCN gas and converting the copper to the mineral chalcocite (Cu 2 S) 3. Thickening The chalcocite is thickened and filtered. The mineral is now a saleable by-product 4. Recycling The recycled cyanide is returned to the gold recovery segment of the operation CuCN (in solution) SART Process Cu 2 S (for sale) CN- (recycled to gold plant)

The SART process has been used successfully at several full-scale mining operations and more plants currently under construction. Projects currently using the SART process include Telfer, Australia (Newcrest Mining); Yanacocha, Chile (Newmont); Lluvia de Oro, Mexico (NWM Mining Corp); Gedabek, Azerbaijan (Anglo Asian); Mastra, Turkey (Koza Gold); Maricunga, Chile (Kinross).