Capillary electrophoretic analysis of sulfur and cyanicides speciation during cyanidation of gold complex sulfidic ores

A capillary electrophoretic protocol for the separation and quantification of the most important species potentially liberated during the cyanidation of gold sulfide‐rich ores was accomplished in this study. The separation of 11 ions: S₂O₃^2–, Cu(CN)₃^2–, Fe(CN)₆^4–, Fe(CN)₆^3–, SCN^–, Au(CN)₂^–, Ag(CN)₂^–, SO₄^2–, OCN^–, SO₃^2–, and HS^– was achieved using an indirect UV detection method. The robustness of the analytical protocol was tested by analyzing ions speciation during the cyanidation of two gold sulfide‐rich ores. The 1‐h cyanidation of the two ores released up to six complexes into solution: S₂O₃^2–, Cu(CN)₃^2–, SCN^–, Fe(CN)₆^4–, OCN^–, and SO₄^2–. The mineralogy of the ore was found to influence directly the nature and the amount of the dissolved species. Conserving the cyanidation solution for 72 h after sampling resulted in 96% total sulfur recovery. These results allow us to conclude that the analytical protocol developed in this study can become very useful for the optimization of precious‐metals cyanidation plants.