METHOD FOR DEVELOPMENT OF DEPOSITS OF POTASSIUM SALTS AND GOLD Russian patent published in 1998 - IPC

FIELD: mining industry. SUBSTANCE: this relates to mining industry and also to hydrometallurgy and can be used in extracting gold from salt sludges resulted from potassium production. According to method, coffer-dam is built of impermeable material to separate sludge storage into two parts. Then brine is pumped out from one part of sludge storage into other part of storage. After that, sludge is crushed by drilling and blasting operations. Crushed sludge is subjected to aggregation by means of spraying it with cement slurry. After cement slurry gets hardened, bore-holes are drilled down to bottom of sludge storage. Bore-holes are cased by pipes, and filters are installed on bottom-hole of wells. Aggregated sludge is sprayed from atop with solutions which lixiviate gold. Pumping-out of gold-bearing solutions is carried out from lower part of bore-hole. Then, on completion of heap lixiviation of gold, similar operations are performed in other part of sludge storage. Application of aforesaid method allows for recovery of accompanying elements from salt sludges. EFFECT: higher efficiency. 1 dwg