Adsorption of polythionates and thiosulfate on strong base anion exchange resins

Muslim, A. and Pareek, V.K. and Tade, M.O. and Jeffrey, M.I. and Zhang, H.G. 2009. Adsorption of polythionates and thiosulfate on strong base anion exchange resins, in Engineering our future : are we up to the challenge? (Chemeca 2009), September 27 - 30 2009, Perth, W.A.: Institution of Chemical Engineers in Australia (IChemE) and Engineers Australia and The Royal Australian Chemical Institute Incorporated (RACI Inc) and The Society of Chemical Engineers New Zealand (SCENZ)

Faculty

School of Engineering

Faculty of Science and Engineering

Department of Chemical Engineering

URI

http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/15397

Collection

Curtin Research Publications

Abstract

Thiosulfate leaching is an alternative process to cyanidation for recovering gold from ores. Resin in pulp has been suggested as a possible operation for the recovery of gold from the thiosulfate leach solutions. The aim of this work is to investigate the adsorption of polythionates and thiosulfate on strong based anion exchange resins, as they are the competing species for the adsorption of gold. The kinetics of thiosulfate, trithionate and tetrathionate load is first order, approaching equilibrium. The equilibrium constants for the adsorption reactions were obtained using the experimental data. The use of the rate constants and equilibrium constants for adsorption allows the resin in pulp process to be effectively modelled.