Gold Leaching from Copper Anode Slime with 1-Butly-3-Methyl Imidazolium Chloride

Abstract

The aim of this study was to realize gold leaching from copper anode slime (CAS) with ionic liquid treatment. A novel medium, 1-butyl -3-methyl-imidazolium chloride (BmimCl), was used as the leaching reagent. The effects of ionic liquid concentration, temperature, time ,and solid/liquid ratio (S/L) on the leaching efficiency were investigated by Taguchi optimization and ANOVA methods. The results showed that 61.20% of gold leaching efficiency was achieved from CAS, under the optimum leaching conditions which were determined as %80 ionic liquid concentration, 50 degrees C temperature, 1 h time and 1/20 g/mL solid/liquid ratio. The statistical results of the experiments revealed that the effects of each parameter on the gold leaching with BmimCl were in the following order: temperature > time > solid/liquid ratio > ionic liquid concentration.