Hydrometallurgy 113114 (2012) 2530

Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect

Hydrometallurgy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/hydromet

Thiocyanate hydrometallurgy for the recovery of gold.

Part IV: Solvent extraction of gold with Alamine 336
Jinshan Li a, M. Sadegh Safarzadeh a, Michael S. Moats a, Jan D. Miller a,, K. Marc LeVier b,
Meg Dietrich b, Rong Yu Wan c
a
Department of Metallurgical Engineering, College of Mines and Earth Sciences, University of Utah, 135 South 1460 East, Room 412 William C. Browning Building, Salt Lake City,
UT 84112-0114, United States
b
Plato Malozemoff Technical Facility, Newmont Mining Corporation, 10101 East Dry Creek Road, Englewood, CO 80112-1556, United States
c
Deceased, formerly Metallurgy Consultant, 9634 South Kalamere Court, Highlands Ranch, CO 80126-4904, United States

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 30 May 2011
Received in revised form 15 November 2011
Accepted 16 November 2011
Available online 27 November 2011
Keywords:
Solvent extraction
Gold
Amines
Thiocyanate
Alamine 336
Stripping

a b s t r a c t
Solvent extraction with amines has been evaluated as a possible method to purify and concentrate gold from
thiocyanate solutions. No signicant difference was observed in gold extraction with commercially available
tertiary amines (Alamine 336, Alamine 308, and Alamine 3041). The effects of Alamine 336 and thiocyanate
concentrations were examined for gold extraction. Gold extraction isotherms were established at different
thiocyanate concentrations. The extraction and stripping of gold showed satisfactory results at an organic/
aqueous (O/A) ratio of 1:5 for extraction (~100%) and 5:1 for stripping (~92%), in the presence of decanol.
Possible solvent extraction reactions and stripping reactions with thiourea are discussed in order to better
understand the system chemistry. Sodium hydroxide/thiocyanate, ammonium hydroxide, and acidic thiourea
were examined for the stripping of gold from the loaded organic phase. Acidic thiourea gave the best results
(with complete stripping of gold) under the conditions studied.
2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Much has been written over the past years on the recovery of
gold from thiourea (Li and Miller, 2006) and cyanide solutions
(Marsden and House, 2006; Senanayake, 2005). However, the investigation of thiocyanate leaching and recovery of gold is more limited
(Barbosa-Filho and Monhemius, 1989, 1994a, 1994b, 1994c; Broadhurst
and Du Preez, 1993; Li et al., 2008; Monhemius and Ball, 1995).
Recovery of gold from thiocyanate solutions by activated carbon adsorption (Kholmogorov et al., 2002; Kononova et al., 2005; Monhemius
and Ball, 1995), ion exchange (Fleming, 1986; Kholmogorov et al., 2002;
Monhemius and Ball, 1995), cementation (Ravaglia and Barbosa-Filho,
2000, 2005; Wang et al., 2007; Yen et al., 1998) and reductionprecipitation with sodium borohydride (Awadalla and Ritcey, 1991) has been
reported. According to these studies, activated carbon has strong adsorption properties for Au-SCN complexes for high gold recovery, and
rapid kinetics, but lacks selectivity, and needs stripping at high temperatures (about 150 C). Strong base ion exchange resin has similar properties to activated carbon. Medium base resin shows promising
potential high gold recovery and easy stripping conditions at room
This paper is an extension of the work presented and published in Hydrometallurgy
2008, 6th International Symposium, Phoenix, AZ, United States (Li et al., 2008).
Corresponding author. Tel.: + 1 801 5815160; fax: + 1 801 5814937.
E-mail address: jan.miller@utah.edu (J.D. Miller).
0304-386X/$ see front matter 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.hydromet.2011.11.006

temperature. Sodium borohydride is not as effective for gold recovery

from thiocyanate solution.
Gold forms anionic complexes in thiocyanate solutions (Li et al.,
2008). In this regard it is expected that amine extractants may be
suitable for gold extraction. There are four types of amines with different molecular structures, i.e. primary, secondary, tertiary, and quaternary amines. The thiocyanate solution for gold leaching is quite
acidic and the pH is usually from pH 1 to 2 (Li et al., 2008). In contrast,
cyanide solutions for gold leaching have a pH of about 10. Relatively
weak alkyl amines should be considered for extraction from thiocyanate solutions since strong base amines would likely be difcult to
strip (Ma et al., 2000; Mooiman and Miller, 1984, 1985). In fact, the
gold cyanoanion is so difcult to strip from loaded quaternary
amine that it has been incinerated in order to recover gold (Riveros,
1990). Thus, in this current research, tertiary amines were evaluated
for gold recovery from acidic thiocyanate/ferric sulfate solutions.
2. Materials and methods
Three tertiary amines; i.e. Alamine 336 (trialkyl (C8C10) amine),
Alamine 308 (triiso-octyl amine), and Alamine 3041 (tridodecyl
amine), were obtained from Cognis Company and used as received.
Decanol (Cognis Company) was added to improve the solubility of
gold and ferric species in the organic phase and to mitigate the viscosity of the organic phase when loaded with ferric ion in some

J. Li et al. / Hydrometallurgy 113114 (2012) 2530

experiments. Hexane (Sigma-Aldrich Company) was employed as received for the dilution.
Sulfuric acid and sodium hydroxide (both AR, Mallinckrodt) were
used to adjust pH. Ammonium hydroxide and thiourea (both AR,
Mallinckrodt) were used for gold stripping. In all experiments, DI
water was used to prepare the aqueous solutions.
For the purpose of comparing three amine extractants, experiments were performed in separatory funnels at a volumetric
phase ratio of 1 (organic/aqueous: O/A) with a shaker (MAX Q 2000,
Barnstead/Lab-Line) for equilibration. However, this shaker was
found to be inadequate for solvent extraction of gold at a high
phase ratio and hence hand shaking was used for those experiments.
Gold thiocyanate solutions were prepared and extracted with amine.
Chemical analyses were performed using an ICP-OES.

10
9
8
7
6

pH final

26

5
Alamine 308

Alamine 336

Alamine 304-1

2
1
0

3. Solvent extraction at low phase ratios

pH initial
3.1. Scoping experiments
For the initial scoping experiments, pH was not controlled and
thus the initial and nal pHs were not the same. Comparison of the
three tertiary amines was made with respect to their extraction of
gold and thiocyanate as shown in Fig. 1. Gold-thiocyanate anionic
complexes and free thiocyanate appear to be co-extracted into the organic phase. However, selectivity of the gold species over free thiocyanate appears to be possible by pH control.
Fig. 2 illustrates the relationship between the initial pH and nal
pH for these experiments. As tertiary amines have moderate alkalinity, it is expected that acid will be extracted from aqueous solutions
which appears to be the case. These results suggest that the tertiary
amines examined have similar properties under the conditions investigated. Alamine 336 was chosen for use in subsequent experiments
due to its slightly better gold extraction curve.

Fig. 2. Variation of pH before and after gold extraction by Alamine 336, Alamine 308,
and Alamine 304. Initial aqueous phase composition: SCN 0.1 M, Au 10 mg/L. Initial organic composition: Alamine 336, Alamine 308, or Alamine 3041 0.1 M, using hexane
as solvent/carrier at room temperature (~ 23 C). O/A of 1 and mixing time of 20 min.

extraction. According to Fig. 3, at a low concentration of Alamine

336 (4 10 4 M), the system is starved for extractant.
3.3. The effect of Alamine 336 concentration on the extraction of gold
The effect of Alamine 336 concentration on gold extraction was
more thoroughly examined as shown in Fig. 4. The results demonstrate that when the molar ratio of Alamine 336/gold is above 10,
gold extraction at a high level (~98%) is achieved, and the effect of Alamine 336 concentration is negligible. For molar ratios less than 10,
gold extraction increases with increasing Alamine 336 concentration.

3.2. The effect of ionic strength on the extraction of gold

3.4. The effect of thiocyanate concentration on the extraction of gold
The effect of ionic strength on gold extraction was studied by
using aqueous solutions of varying Na2SO4 concentration. Two different Alamine 336 concentrations (4 10 4 and 4 10 2 M) were examined. pH was controlled at 1.8 throughout the experiments, which
were performed at 23 C, O/A of 1:2, and mixing time of 20 min. Fig. 3
reveals that ionic strength did not have a signicant effect under the
conditions studied. Therefore, an indifferent electrolyte was not
added for control of ionic strength in subsequent experiments. Obviously, the concentration of the extractant will have an effect on gold

As presented in Fig. 5, at a relatively high Alamine 336 concentration of 0.05 M, the variation of thiocyanate concentration from 0.01 to
0.2 M does not signicantly affect the extraction of gold under the
conditions employed.
However, at low Alamine 336 concentrations it can be seen that at
equal molar Alamine 336 and gold concentrations the effect becomes
100

100

95

[Alamine 336] = 410-2 M

90
Gold

90

70

Au extraction (%)

Extraction (%)

80
Thiocyanate

60
50
40
Alamine 308, Au

30

Alamine 336, Au
Alamine 304-1, Au

20

85

[Alamine 336] = 410-4 M

80
75
70

Alamine 308, SCN

65

Alamine 336, SCN

Alamine 304-1, SCN

10
0
0

10

Final pH
Fig. 1. The effect of nal pH on the extraction of gold and thiocyante. Initial aqueous
phase composition: SCN 0.1 M, Au 10 mg/L. Initial organic composition: Alamine 336,
Alamine 308, or Alamine 3041 0.1 M, using hexane as solvent/carrier at room temperature (~ 23 C). O/A of 1 and mixing time of 20 min.

60
0

0.05

0.1

0.15

0.2

0.25

Na2SO4 concentration (M)

Fig. 3. The effect of ionic strength (I) on gold extraction by Alamine 336 (4 10 2 and
4 10 4 M) in hexane. Au 10 mg/L, SCN 0.1 M, pH 1.8, and 23 C. Mixing time 20 min.
and O/A of 1:2.

J. Li et al. / Hydrometallurgy 113114 (2012) 2530

100

27

100
90
80

[Au] organic (mg/L)

Au extraction (%)

90

80

70

60

70
60
50
SCN 0.02 M

40

SCN 0.05 M

30

SCN 0.1 M

20

50

10
0

40
0

10

11

10

20

30

Alamine 336 concentration (mM)

Fig. 4. The effect of Alamine 336 concentration on gold extraction. Au 20 mg/L, SCN
0.05 M, pH 1.8, 23 C, O/A of 1:2, and hexane as solvent/carrier. Mixing time 20 min.

signicant, i.e. increasing the thiocyanate concentration results in decreasing gold extraction, as illustrated in Fig. 6.
3.5. Determination of gold extraction isotherms
Extraction isotherms for gold were determined at various thiocyanate concentrations from 0.02 to 0.1 M at an Alamine 336 concentration of 4 10 4 M, pH 1.8, 23 C, O/A of 1:2, and mixing time of
20 min (Fig. 6). Gold loading in the organic phase was limited since
the Alamine 336 concentration was low (4 10 4 M). Under these
conditions, it appears that free SCN can limit gold extraction. Gold
loading in the organic phase increased with an increase in Alamine
336 concentration, which is shown in Table 1.
3.6. Stripping of gold

50

60

70

80

Fig. 6. Isotherms of gold extraction from SCN aqueous solution by Alamine 336
(4 10 4 M) at pH 1.8, 23 C, O/A of 1:2 with various SCN concentrations. Mixing
time 20 min.

the gold thiocyanate anion to the gold-bearing thiourea cation that

would not be extracted with the amine. Theoretically, if a neutrally
charged ligand has a stronger comlexing tendency with an aurous
ion than thiocyanate, then it can be used as a stripping agent as the
ligand can transform the anionic aurous thiocyanate complex to a cationic complex. The stability constants for the formation of different
gold complexes, which is the basis for the selection of stripping
agents, will be discussed in the following sections.
3.6.1. Stripping of gold with sodium hydroxide/thiocyanate solution
The complexation reaction between the aurous ions (Reaction
(1)) and thiocyanate has a large stability constant as discussed in
part (I).

Au 2 SCN
Stripping of gold from Alamine 336 was performed with sodium
hydroxide/thiocyanate, ammonium hydroxide, and acidic thiourea.
The selection of these reagents was based on the depression of gold
extraction seen previously in alkaline solution or the conversion of

100

AuSCN2

98

2;SCN

1:47  10

19

Nevertheless, stripping may be possible with sodium hydroxide

solution because Alamine is a weak base. In this regard, sodium hydroxide/thiocyanate solutions were employed to strip gold from an
organic phase (Alamine 336 0.1 M, Au 8.16 mg/L and SCN 0.05 M).
The stripping of loaded Alamine can be explained by Reaction (2).
R3 NHAuSCN2 OH

99

Au extraction (%)

40

[Au] aqueous (mg/L)

R3 N AuSCN2

H2 O

Thiocyanate concentration in the aqueous phase was 0.2 M. Sodium hydroxide was used to adjust pH. The results presented in Fig. 7
show that gold stripping increases with an increase in pH until pH
10 and then reaches a maximum (~80%) in the pH range of 1011.
This is in complete agreement with Reaction (2).

97
96
95
94
93

Table 1
The effect of Alamine 336 concentration on gold extraction. Au 20 mg/L, SCN 0.05 M,
pH 1.8, 23 C. Mixing time 20 min, O/A of 1:2, and hexane as solvent/carrier.

92
91
90
0

0.04

0.08

0.12

0.16

0.2

0.24

SCN concentration (M)

Fig. 5. The effect of SCN concentration on gold extraction by Alamine 336. O/A of 1:2,
Au 10 mg/L, pH 1.8, and 23 C. Organic phase: Alamine 336 0.05 M and hexane. Mixing
time 20 min.

Alamine 336
concentration (M)

[Au]Aqueous (mg/L)

[Au]Organic (mg/L)

1 10 2
5 10 3
2 10 3
1 10 3
1 10 4

0.3
0.4
0.6
0.7
4.4

39.8
39.6
39.0
38.9
31.3

28

J. Li et al. / Hydrometallurgy 113114 (2012) 2530

100

hydroxide is signicant at pH values above 10. The stripping reaction

can be written as follows (Reaction (5)).

90

Au stripping (%)

80

70
60

3.6.3. Stripping of gold with acidic thiourea

The complexation between the aurous ions and thiourea occurs
according to Reaction (6).

50
40

Au 2 SCNH2 2 Au SCNH2 2

30
20

0
7

10

11

12

AuSCN2

pH

3.6.2. Stripping of gold with ammonium hydroxide

Aurous ions form Au(NH3)2+ in the presence of ammonia, according to Reaction (3) (Aylmore and Muir, 2001; Molleman and
Dreisinger, 2002).

Au 2 NH3 AuNH3 2

2;NH3 5:72  10

28

And, NH3 can replace SCN to form Au(NH3)2+, as shown in Reaction (4).

AuSCN2 2 NH3 AuNH3 2 2 SCN

KSCN=NH3 3:90  10 4

The efciency of ammonium hydroxide for gold stripping is presented in Fig. 8. Gold stripping increases with an increase in pH up
to 10, above which complete stripping is achieved. Ammonium
hydroxide more completely strips gold than the sodium hydroxide/
thiocyanate solution. However, the consumption of ammonium

120

100
Au stripping

100

70

80

60
60

50
40

40

30
20

NH4OH consumption
(mL/L of organic phase)

Ammonium hydroxide
consumption

80

2;SCNH22 2:10  10

21

2SCNH2 2 Au SCNH2 2

2

2SCN KSCN=SCNH22 143

Fig. 7. The effect of pH on gold stripping from organic phase of Au 8.16 mg/L, Alamine
336 0.1 M/hexane and aqueous phase of SCN 0.2 M/NaOH. O/A of 1:2 and 23 C. Mixing
time 20 min.

90

Also, SC(NH2)2 replaces SCN to form Au(SC(NH2)2)2+, according

to Reaction (7).

10

Au stripping (%)

R3 NHAuSCN2 2NH3 R3 N AuNH3 2 2SCN H

20

The efciency of acidic thiourea solution for gold stripping at pH

1.8 was examined. The organic phase was composed of Au 10 mg/L,
Alamine 336 0.1 M/hexane and SCN 0.04 M. Thiourea solutions (0.1,
0.2, 0.5, and 1.0 M) were used as the aqueous phase for stripping
with the pH maintained at 1.8 using sulfuric acid. A summary of the
results for gold stripping with acidic thiourea solution is shown in
Table 2.
It is expected that the stripping of gold with thiourea occurs
according to Reaction (8).

R3 NHAuSCN2 2Tu R3 NHSCN AuTu2 SCN

The results reveal that complete gold stripping is achieved under

the conditions studied. It can be concluded that thiourea has a high
efciency as a gold stripping reagent. In addition to the high stripping
efciency, thiourea is compatible with the acidic thiocyanate leaching
system, leading to low reagent consumption and operating costs.
4. Solvent extraction at high phase ratios
It has been noted from the results already presented that selective
gold recovery from thiocyanate solutions can be achieved by solvent
extraction with tertiary amine (Alamine 336) under appropriate
chemistry control relatively low SCN concentration (0.02 M) in
the aqueous phase and low amine concentration (0.010.02 M) in
the organic phase.
However, extraction and stripping were studied at low O/A phase
ratios, such as 1 or 2. In industrial practice, the gold concentration in
pregnant leach solutions would be expected to be in a range from 1 to
3 mg/L. Thus, it is necessary to concentrate the gold by adjustment of
solvent extraction conditions (phase ratio) to create favorable gold
concentrations for nal production of gold probably through industrially established methods such as cementation or electrowinning.
For this reason, extraction and stripping have been studied at high
phase ratios in extraction (O/A of 1:5) and in stripping (O/A of 5:1).
The efciency of these conditions and the inuence of system variables (thiocyanate, amine and decanol concentrations) on the gold
recovery and the stripping rate were examined.

10
0

0
6

10

11

12

pH
Fig. 8. Solid curve: stripping of gold from organic phase (Au 10 mg/L, Alamine 336
0.1 M, and SCN 0.04 M) with concentrated ammonium hydroxide. Dashed curve: ammonium hydroxide consumption. O/A of 1:2, 23 C, and mixing time of 20 min.

Table 2
Summary of gold stripping with acidic thiourea. pHequilibrium 1.8, O/A of 1:2, equilibrium time 20 min and 23 C.
Thiourea concentration (M)
Au stripping (%)
Thiourea extraction (%)

0.1
100
0

0.2
100
0

0.5
100
0

1.0
100
0

J. Li et al. / Hydrometallurgy 113114 (2012) 2530

29

2.5

100

4.1. The effect of decanol

90
2

Au extraction (%)

80
70

1.5

60
50

Au extraction

40

1
Au concentration in
raffinate

30
20

0.5

Au concentration in raffinate
(mg/L)

Experiments were performed to establish the effect of decanol on

the stripping of gold. It was found that decanol was needed to have
adequate phase separation when ferric ion was present in the leach
solution. The effect of ferric ion on solvent extraction will be discussed in more detail in part (V) of this research. The experimental
effect of decanol on gold extraction at higher phase ratios is shown
in Fig. 9.
According to the results presented in Fig. 9, the effect of decanol
addition is signicant. At decanol concentrations less than 2 vol.%
the gold recovery from stripping decreases with a decrease in decanol
concentration. The gold recovery becomes satisfactory (~ 100%) and
stable when the decanol concentration exceeds 2 vol.%. Thus, a
decanol concentration of 5 vol.% was used in subsequent experiments.

10
0

0
0

10

20

30

40

50

Time (min.)

The kinetics of gold extraction was studied for a period of 40 min

at O/A of 1:5. The results are shown in Fig. 10.
According to the results, at low Alamine 336 concentration
(0.01 M) and low SCN concentration (0.02 M) and high phase ratio
(O/A of 1:5) gold extraction kinetics are fast. In the rst 10 min
about 90% of the gold is extracted. Then, the gold recovery increases
relatively slowly with an increase in extraction to 94% in 40 min.
4.3. Kinetics of gold stripping from Alamine 0.01 M, pH of 1.8, with
thiourea 0.1 M
The rate of stripping of gold from a loaded organic phase was determined at O/A of 5:1. Fig. 11 shows the rate of gold stripping at selected conditions.
Fig. 11 suggests that the rate of gold stripping is similar to that of
extraction. The rate of gold stripping is fast; with ~92% of the gold
stripped within the rst 10 min. Complete stripping is achieved in
about 30 min under the conditions employed.
4.4. The effects of SCN, amine and thiourea concentrations on the
reaction equilibrium for gold extraction and stripping

60

95

55

90

50

85

45
Au stripping

40

80
Au concentration in
stripping solution

75

35

70

30

65

25

60

20
0

Decanol (vol%)
Fig. 9. The effect of decanol on gold stripping. Extraction conditions: aqueous phase: Au
2 mg/L, SCN 0.020.05 M, Fe (III) 2 g/L, pH 1.8; organic phase: Alamine 336 0.01
0.02 M, decanol 5 vol.%, hexane as carrier, O/A of 1:5, pH 1.8, 23 C, 20 min. Stripping
conditions: aqueous phase: Tu 0.1 M, pH 1.8; organic phase: Au ~ 10 mg/L, Alamine
336 0.010.02 M, decanol 5 vol.%, hexane as carrier, O/A: 5:1, pH 1.8, 23 C.

Additionally, two stages of stripping were used to determine the

overall gold recoveries by Alamine 336 extraction and thiourea stripping. The results are shown in Table 3.
The rst two experiments show that a high recovery of gold is
achieved under low amine (0.010.02 M) and low SCN (0.02 M) concentrations and that the variation of Alamine 336 concentration from
0.01 M to 0.02 M does not signicantly affect gold recoveries in both
amine extraction and thiourea stripping.
It can be seen from the last two experiments that higher SCN
(0.05 M) limits gold extraction to some extent at an amine concentration of 0.02 M. It is supposed that the gold stripping becomes more
difcult at the higher SCN concentration (0.05 M). However, gold
stripping is achieved with high thiourea concentration (0.5 M). This
can be understood from Reaction (8), where a higher thiourea concentration promotes the stripping reaction.
In summary, low SCN (0.02 M) and amine (0.010.02 M) concentrations are effective for gold extraction and benecial for gold stripping at low thiourea concentration (0.1 M). Relatively high SCN
(0.05 M) decreases gold extraction at low amine (0.02 M) and
makes gold stripping more difcult. However, a higher thiourea concentration (0.5 M) promotes the gold stripping.

60

100
90

50

80
70

40

60
50

30
Au stripping

40

20

Au concentration in
stripping solution

30
20

10

10
0

Au concentration in stripping solution

(mg/L)

100

Au concentration in stripping solution

(mg/L)

Au stripping (%)

The effects of SCN and Alamine 336 concentrations on gold extraction and thiourea concentration on gold stripping were examined.

Fig. 10. Kinetics of gold extraction at 0.02 M SCN and 0.01 M amine. Extraction conditions: aqueous phase: Au 2 mg/L, SCN 0.02 M, Fe (III) 2 g/L, pH 1.8; organic phase: Alamine 336 0.01 M, decanol 5 vol.%, hexane as carrier, O/A of 1:5, pH 1.8, 23 C.

Au stripping (%)

4.2. Kinetics of gold extraction from SCN 0.02 M, pH of 1.8, with Alamine
0.01M

0
0

10

20

30

40

50

Time (min.)
Fig. 11. Kinetics of gold stripping at 0.01 M amine and 0.1 M thiourea. Stripping conditions: aqueous phase: Tu 0.1 M, pH 1.8; organic phase: Au ~ 10 mg/L, Alamine 336
0.01 M, decanol 5 vol.%, hexane as carrier, O/A: 5:1, pH 1.8, 23 C.

30

J. Li et al. / Hydrometallurgy 113114 (2012) 2530

Table 3
The effect of SCN, Alamine 336, and thiourea concentrations on gold extraction and stripping. Extraction conditions: aqueous phase: Au 2 mg/L, SCN 0.02 and 0.05 M, Fe (III) 2 g/L,
pH 1.8; organic phase: Alamine 336 0.01 or 0.02 M, decanol 5 vol.%, hexane as carrier, O/A of 1:5, pH 1.8, 23 C, 20 min. Stripping conditions: aqueous phase: Tu 0.1 or 0.2 M, pH 1.8;
organic phase: Au ~ 10 mg/L, Alamine 336 0.02 M, decanol 5 vol.%, hexane as carrier, O/A: 5:1, pH 1.8, 23 C, 20 min, thiourea concentration in the second stage stripping 0.5 M.
Experimental conditions

Amine
Amine
Amine
Amine

0.01 M
0.02 M
0.02 M
0.02 M

SCN
SCN
SCN
SCN

0.02 M
0.02 M
0.05 M
0.05 M

Tu 0.1 M
Tu 0.1 M
Tu 0.2 M
Tu 0.5 M

Extraction

Stripping

Au in rafnate
(mg/L)

Au recovery
(%)

Au in stripping
solution (mg/L)

Au in re-stripping
solution (mg/L)

Total Au
recovery (%)

0.14
0.10
0.43
0.40

93.0
95.0
78.5
80.0

48.3
47.0
45.5
41.0

0.51
0.83
0.60
0.56

97.6
95.7
92.2
83.1

5. Conclusions
Solvent extraction of gold was examined with selected tertiary
amine extractants (Alamine 336, Alamine 308, and Alamine 3041).
It was found that these amines have similar properties for extraction
of gold. Therefore, Alamine 336 was selected for the extraction of the
anionic gold complex (Au(SCN)2) from thiocyanate solution. It was
demonstrated that effective extraction of the gold thiocyanate anion
occurred below pH 5.5, whereas SCN extraction was observed below
pH 3.5.
The kinetics of gold extraction were found to be fast and the
phases were easily separated. The loading capacity for gold was
found to be high. Gold extraction of about 98% was achieved at a
molar ratio of Alamine 336/gold above 10, where extraction was independent of Alamine 336 concentration. At lower molar ratios, the
extraction was found to be dependent on Alamine 336 concentration.
When the Alamine 336 concentration was 0.05 M, the variation of
thiocyanate concentration from 0.01 to 0.2 M did not affect the extraction of gold, whereas at low Alamine 336 concentrations increasing the thiocyanate concentration resulted in a decrease in gold
extraction.
Ammonium hydroxide was found to be more efcient than sodium hydroxide for gold stripping in alkaline solution, but the reagent
consumption was high. It was shown that most effective stripping
was achieved with thiourea at high phase ratios (O/A of 1:5 in extraction and 5:1 in stripping). However, it is expected that high phase ratios would need more vigorous agitation and longer reaction times to
achieve satisfactory gold recoveries in extraction and stripping
operations.
Effective stripping of gold (about 100%) was achieved using an
acidic thiourea solution to stabilize gold as a cation and allow its release from the amine extractant.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Newmont Mining Corporation for
providing nancial support for this project and the permission to
publish this paper. Also, the contributions of Dr. Rong Yu Wan, now
deceased, are recognized for her enthusiastic support of hydrometallurgy research, in general, and this thiocyanate research, in particular.
Special thanks go to Ms. Dorrie Spurlock for proofreading the
manuscript, and providing great suggestions. Any opinions, ndings
and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are
those of the authors and do not necessarily reect the views of
Newmont Mining Corporation.
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