Investigation of the effects of microwave energy on leaching performance in the recovery of silver from rom silver ore

Within the scope of this thesis, microwave energy was used as a pretreatment for the recovery of silver from silver ore by cyanide leaching and the effects of microwave energy on the silver recovery efficiency were investigated. In the study, it is aimed to evaluate the parameters of different cyanide leaks and to use cyanide in the least amount and to obtain the highest yield in the shortest leaching time. Experiments were carried out at microwave power levels of 120-700 W and microwave operating times of 2, 5 and 10 minutes in order to determine the effect of preheating with microwave energy on leaching performance (32% plump solid ratio, 2 gr / lt NaCN, 48 hours Leaching time). After determination of the microwave power levels and the effect of the processing time, microwave pretreatment was performed at different grain sizes to determine the grain size effect. Silver ores milled to sizes of 75, 45, 38, 25 and 10 micrometers were subjected to pre-heat treatment at specified microwave power and duration and then leached at plant conditions. A series of experiments were conducted to reduce the amount of leaching and cyanide in order to improve plant conditions after determining the effect of microwave power level, processing time and grain size so that the highest possible silver gain can be obtained. Experiments were carried out for 6-72 hours in order to lower the leaching time which is 48 hours in the plant working conditions to a shorter period, after that the aim was to decrease the NaCN content to a lower level and experiments were carried out in the range of 1-8 gr / l. The silver recovery yield, which was 43.1% of the experiments performed under the plant conditions, increased to 63.51% after microwave pre-treatment of 350 W 10 minutes. It was also found that the yield of silver recovery in plant conditions with a microwave pre-treatment of 350 W for 10 minutes could be obtained at a leaching time of 1 gr / lt cyanide and 6 hours. Keywords: Silver, Microwave, Cyanide