Patent ID: 8871162

Claim:
A process for gold and copper recovery from mixed oxide-sulfide copper ores comprising the steps of: crushing, screening and grinding the ores to appropriate size; subjecting the ground ores to copper flotation, using xanthate as collector, and a suitable frother at a pH range of about 7 to about 8 to obtain a rougher concentrate, a scavenger concentrate and a copper by product, said rougher concentrate undergoes further grinding and flotation to obtain final copper concentrate and cleaner tails; said scavenger concentrate undergoes further grinding before recycling to copper flotation stage; and said copper by-products undergo further processing by dewatering, then flotation at a pH range of about 5 to about 7 using a fatty acid-xanthate reagent combination as collector or promoter of the gold and a suitable frother to obtain rougher concentrate, scavenger concentrate and scavenger tails, subjecting said rougher concentrate to regrinding and cleaner flotation to separate the gold concentrate from the tailings, leaching the copper-gold concentrate with H 2 SO 4 at a pH of about 1 to about 2 until leaching is completed within 2 to 5 hours followed by liquid-solid separation of the acid leach liquor containing copper and leach residue and finally, subjecting the leach residue to final leaching to extract and recover gold from a liquor containing additional values of dissolved copper or copper bearing liquor.