Gold ore processing

Main articles: Gold extraction and Gold parting

In placer mines, the gold is recovered by gravity separation. For hard rock mining,
other methods are usually used.[12]
Cyanide process[edit]
Main article: Gold cyanidation
Cyanide extraction of gold may be used in areas where fine gold-bearing rocks are
found. Sodium cyanide solution is mixed with finely ground rock that is proven to
contain gold or silver, and is then separated from the ground rock as gold cyanide
or silver cyanide solution. Zinc is added to precipitate out residual zinc as well
as the silver and gold metals. The zinc is removed with sulfuric acid, leaving a
silver or gold sludge that is generally smelted into an ingot then shipped to a
metals refinery for final processing into 99.9999% pure metals.
Advancements in the 1970s have seen activated carbon used in extracting gold from
the leach solution. The gold is absorbed into the porous matrix of the carbon.
Activated carbon has so much internal surface area,[13] that fifteen grams of it
has the equivalent surface area of the Melbourne Cricket Ground (18,100 square
metres (195,000 sq ft)). The gold can be removed from the carbon by using a strong
solution of caustic soda and cyanide, a process known as elution. Gold is then
plated out onto steel wool through electrowinning. Gold specific resins can also be
used in place of activated carbon, or where selective separation of gold from
copper or other dissolved metals is required.
The technique using dissolution with alkaline cyanide has been highly developed
over recent years. It is particularly appropriate for low grade gold and silver ore
processing (e.g. less than 5 ppm gold) but its use is not restricted to such ores.
There are many environmental hazards associated with this extraction method,
largely due to the high acute toxicity of the cyanide compounds involved. A major
example of this hazard was demonstrated in the 2000 Baia Mare cyanide spill, when a
break in holding pond dam at a mine waste reprocessing facility near Baia Mare in
northern Romania released approximately 100,000 cubic metres (3,500,000 cu ft) of
waste water contaminated with heavy metal sludge and up to 120 long tons (122 t) of
cyanide into the Tisza River.[14] As a consequence, most countries now have strict
regulations for cyanide in plant discharges, and plants today include a specific
cyanide-destruction step before discharging their tailings to a storage facility.
Mercury process[edit]
Historically, mercury was used extensively in placer gold mining in order to form
mercury-gold amalgam with smaller gold particles, and thereby increase the gold
recovery rates. Large-scale use of mercury stopped in the 1960s. However, mercury
is still used in artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM), often clandestine,
gold prospecting.[15] It is estimated that 45,000 metric tons of mercury used in
California for placer mining have not been recovered