Chemists from Russia working with their Chinese colleagues have come up with a new method for producing gold from ore, reducing extraction costs by upwards of 30-40%, and dramatically decreasing the amount of time needed to do so, the press service of Moscow's National University of Science and Technology (MISiS) has reported.
"The possibility to introduce our technology into gold production will be affected by [world market] prices for an ounce of gold," MISiS Professor Vadim Tarasov explained, commenting on the new production method.
Contrary to centuries-old stereotypes about how gold is actually produced, today most of the precious metal is extracted from the ground not in the form of nuggets or gold dust, but through the chemical processing of copper and other ores which contain it.
But scientists from the University, together with their Chinese colleagues, have come up with a new method for chemical extraction, which reduces extraction costs by 30-40%. The method adds ammonia to the cyanide compound. The technology is between four and eight times faster than the standard chemical method, and is far less exposed by unwanted impurities such as copper. This will allow miners to spend much less time, effort and resources to separate gold from copper.