Industrial wastewater treatment solutions provider BioteQ Environmental Technologies has secured a contract with an unidentified international gold mining company to carry out test work for a novel application of SART (sulphidization-acidification-recycle-thickening) process technology in which cyanide will be regenerated from a zinc-cyanide solution rather than the more usual copper-cyanide solution. The work, which includes laboratory testing and evaluation of the suitability of SART, is expected to be complete by the third quarter of this year. The test work will provide the design criteria for a commercial proposal to supply a SART plant.
BioteQ said the SART process, developed by SGS Lakefield and Teck Corp., can remove the metallurgical interference of cyanide-soluble base metals and regenerate cyanide for recycle to the gold operation. SART can improve gold yields, reduce processing costs, and enhance the environmental performance of gold mining operations.
BioteQ noted that in the past four years, several new SART plants have been commissioned and gold companies are looking more closely at SART to improve the economics of new, closed or existing mine operations.
