Extraction of gold and silver in the selective chlorination roasting process of cyanidation tailing

The selective chlorination of cyanidation tailing (CT) for the extraction of gold and silver has been investigated. The reaction operated at different conditions and their effect on the extraction of Au and Ag was studied. The mineral samples were characterized by fire assay, X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and scanning electronic microscopy (SEM). The best recovery values were 95.32% of Au and 85.32% of Ag at 1373 K and 1.5 h with 5% KCl. The results show that gold chlorination reaction was controlled by the interfacial chemical reaction, and the apparent activation energy was 40.05 kJ/mol. Silver has an activation energy of about 8.97 kJ/mol, and silver removal is performed by diffusion control.