Designing the SART process – A review

Abstract

Almost twenty years ago, the first paper about the SART process was published, and eleven years ago the first SART plant was commissioned and operated at Telfer mine, in Australia. Up to this moment, seven SART processes have been constructed and operated in different gold cyanidation plants worldwide, demonstrating the interest of the metallurgical community for this technology. The first pilot testing of a SART process was conducted and published in 1998 for Lobo-Marte project, in order to implement a feasible technology to treat a gold ore containing cyanide-soluble copper. This milestone was the driving force to promote this technology in other mines having the same issue: the high cyanide-soluble copper content in gold ores which limits the profitability of a gold mine project. Currently, the SART process has demonstrated to be the best option to treat gold-copper ores using cyanide, due to its capability to recover cyanide and produce a saleable copper product. As a matter of fact, a SART plant can reduce the operational cost and increase the incomes in a gold mine, although the main achievement is to make feasible the treatment of a gold-copper ore deposit. The aim of this work is to present the state-of-art of the SART process, focused on designing and showing a compilation of published work about different SART projects and plants.