Hydrometallurgy 198 (2020) 105527

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Hydrometallurgy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/hydromet

Gold leaching from oxide ores in alkaline glycine solutions in the presence
of permanganate
E.A. Oraby a, b, J.J. Eksteen a, *, G.M. O’Connor a
a
Western Australian School of Mines, Minerals, Energy and Chemical Engineering Curtin University, GPO Box U1987, Perth, Western Australia 6845, Australia
b
Mining and Metallurgical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Assiut University, Egypt

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: In this study, the effect of using strong oxidants with alkaline glycine solutions on the leach rate and recovery of
Glycine gold was studied in the absence of cyanide. Prior research indicated that when using only alkaline glycine and air
Gold recovery at ambient temperature in the absence of catalysts, leaching times would be too long for conventional agitated
Leaching
tank leaching of ores. The ores used in this study were from oxidised geological domains, which would not be
Permanganate
Alkaline
expected to excessively consume oxidant. Ores with reactive sulfides or other reducing minerals would be ex­
pected to rapidly consume an oxidant, making the process ineffective. The influence of the oxidants such as
potassium permanganate, hydrogen peroxide, sodium chlorate, potassium iodide, and potassium ferricyanide
were initially evaluated in a screening test. The highest gold extractions were observed with potassium per­
manganate, where a recovery of 85.1% was achieved at 1.5 kg/t glycine and 3 kg/t permanganate at 30% solids,
pH 10.5 and ambient temperature using a bottle roll process. This compared to a 87.4% recovery against a
conventional cyanidation benchmark with 30% solids, pH 10.5 and ambient temperature using the bottle roll.
Other oxidants only achieved a recovery of 11% at best, so permanganate was the focus of the optimisation work.
The solution pH had very little effect on gold recovery between 9.5 and 11.5. The ratio of glycine to perman­
ganate concentration is significant, if potassium permanganate is in a molar excess, the recovery is greatly
reduced due to oxidation of the glycine. The main products of this reaction, when lime was used as pH modifier,
were determined to be calcium carbonate, calcium oxalate, trace amounts of ammonia and manganese dioxide.
Gold is recoverable from leach solutions by conventional adsorption onto activated carbon.

1. Introduction
Cyanide has been used for gold extraction for over 100 years and is
the default lixiviant in the gold industry. It is cheap and effective for gold
dissolution, producing a highly stable gold-cyanide complex which is
easily recovered from solution by adsorption onto activated carbon.
However, the high toxicity of cyanide, increasing regulatory restrictions,
and poor selectivity with low-grade ores are proving to be challenging
problems for the gold industry. Many alternative non-cyanide lixiviants
have been studied and tested in the laboratory over the past few de­
cades, with only the calcium thiosulfate system being commercialised at
an industrial scale. Thiosulfate, glycine, thiourea, halide and thiocya­
nate have shown some promise for some selected ores (Oraby and Eks­
teen, 2015; Feng and Van Deventer, 2010; Marsden and House, 2006;
Aylmore, 2005) and it is clear that a fit-for-purpose approach is required
as there is no panacea lixiviant that is equally suitable for every
mineralogy or conditions. These lixiviants have the potential for use in
districts where cyanidation is restricted; some have faster kinetics; some
are more suitable for treating refractory ore and some have higher
selectivity than cyanide (Marsden and House, 2006). However, there are
also many challenges such as high cost, high reagent consumption, and
often low leach rate, or complex downstream recovery.
The use of glycine and other amino acids such as glutamic acid as
lixiviants for base and precious metals was introduced and patented by
researchers at the Curtin University (Oraby and Eksteen, 2014a; Oraby
and Eksteen, 2014b; Oraby and Eksteen, 2015; Eksteen and Oraby,
2015; Tanda et al., 2017). The most effective application of glycine for
tank leaching is with a cyanide-starved process, commercialised under
the trade name GlyCat™, where cyanide plays a catalysing role (Oraby
and Eksteen, 2015; Oraby et al., 2017). Gold and/or copper can be
effectively recovered by carbon adsorption, resin adsorption and sulfide
precipitation (Deng et al., 2019, 2020a, 2020b; Tauetsile et al., 2018a,

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: jacques.eksteen@curtin.edu.au (J.J. Eksteen).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hydromet.2020.105527
Received 21 June 2020; Received in revised form 24 October 2020; Accepted 14 November 2020
Available online 19 November 2020
0304-386X/© 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
E.A. Oraby et al. Hydrometallurgy 198 (2020) 105527

2018b). The GlyCat™ process has attracted much attention from in­ /
dustry and a pilot campaign was performed recently based on this 2MnO−4 + 2(NH2 CH 2 COO)− + 1 2 O2 →2MnO2 ↓ + 2C2 O−4 2 + 2NH3 (aq) + H2 O
technology (Seaman et al., 2019) to recover gold from a low-grade (4)
gold‑copper concentrate high in sulfide sulfur. Ammonia oxidation:
On its own, and under similar conditions, the leach rate of gold with
glycine is significantly slower than with cyanide, but still shows promise 2MnO−4 + 2NH3 (aq)→2MnO2 ↓ + N2 ↑ + 2OH − + 2H2 O (5)
for heap, dump and in situ operations. For a cyanide-free glycine oper­ Oxalate oxidation:
ation to be viable at ambient temperature in an agitated tank leach pro­
cess, the leach kinetics would need to be significantly accelerated. Some C2 O−4 2 →2CO2 ↑ + 2e− (6)
improvement has been reported with a combination of high temperature
Oxygen reduction:
and high pH, as recently shown for a Western Australian paleochannel
ore, but the rate is still lower than with cyanide (Oraby and Eksteen, O2 + 2H2 O + 4e− →4OH − (7)
2015; Oraby et al., 2017). This work used dilute glycine and conven­
The mechanism and reaction between glycine and permanganate in
tional bottle roll aeration (i.e. no oxygen sparging).
the presence of air, and the effect of this on the gold leach rate are
The reaction of gold with glycine is shown in Eq. 1.
discussed in this paper. The effects of glycine concentration, perman­
[ ]
4Au + 8NH2 CH 2 COOH + 4NaOH + O2 →4Na Au(NH 2 CH 2 COO)2 + 6H2 O ganate concentration, solution pH, and oxidant type and pH modifier
(1) were summarised.

Recently the use of alkaline glycine only, but at elevated tempera­
tures (60 ◦ C), high oxygen addition rate (1 L/min for a fluid volume of 1
L), 1.25 M glycine (93.8 g/L), pH of 12, and high stirring rate (900 rpm),
gold recoveries in excess of 90% were obtained. The leaching was con­
ducted for 24 h at 10 wt% solids pulp of gold ore which contains 5.4 g/t
(Altinkaya et al., 2020), thereby validating the earlier work done by
Eksteen and Oraby (2015), but on ore rather than gold sheet.
Another way to improve the reaction rate could be with appropriate
oxidants or catalysts. The use of an alkali-stable transition metal-
complex or a mixture of different complexes as oxidants were found to
be synergistic catalysts with the alkaline amino acid system (Eksteen and
Oraby, 2017). Adding one or more of the alkali-stable transition metal
complexes presents advantages which include (1) accelerated leach
rates of gold; (2) introduces a cyanide-free leaching system; and (3)
reduce the leach temperatures while achieving high leach rates at room
temperature.
Potassium permanganate (“Permanganate”) is a strong oxidant that
may be applicable to oxidised gold ores. For ores with reactive sul­
phides, it is expected that permanganate consumption would be exces­
sive due to reaction with abundant minerals such as reactive sulfides.
Permanganate is manufactured industrially from the reaction between
manganese dioxide or manganese ores (pyrolusite) and potassium hy­
droxide in heated air or oxygen to produce manganate according to Eq. 2
(Garcia, and Manuel D.O.G. (Oviedo, ES), 1991; Popoff, 1919). Through
an electrolytic oxidation, the manganate is then converted to potassium
permanganate in an alkaline medium as shown in Eq. 3.
2MnO2 + 4KOH + O2 →2K2 MnO4 + 2H2 O (2)
2K2 MnO4 + 2H2 O→2KMnO4 + 2KOH + H2 (3)
Potassium permanganate is well known as one of the most effective
and commonly used oxidizing agents in different industries (Stewart and
Wiberg, 1965; Pérez-Benito et al., 2012). The oxidisation of organic
species including amino acids by permanganate is also well known and
many studies have addressed these reactions (Fawzy and Musleh, 2014;
Jose et al., 2005; Halligudi et al., 2000; Insausti et al., 1992). The
oxidation and loss of glycine as a complexing agent for gold will
therefore be discussed in this study.
For effective leaching, glycine will be added at more than the stoi­
chiometric ratio with permanganate dictated by Eq. 4. This is to ensure
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Samples
Quantitative X-ray diffraction (QXRD) and X-ray fluorescence (XRF)
analyses of the four samples tested are shown in Tables 1 and 2. Quartz is
the dominant mineral in all samples except ore A, which also had major
dolomite. The elemental analysis confirmed that silicon is the main
element and that there was very low sulphide sulfur in all tested ores.
The fire assay analysis showed that the feed samples have a relatively
high gold content ranging from 1.32 to 3.74 g/t.
2.2. Sample preparation
Four gold oxide ore samples were ground to 100% passing 75 μm.
The mineralogical composition of the samples was determined by
Quantitative X-ray Diffraction (Q-XRD).To calculate the final gold
extraction, the feed and final leach residues were analysed for gold by
fire assay and for base metals and other elements by X-ray Fluorescence
(XRF).
2.3. Leaching
All experiments were carried out using solutions prepared from
analytical grade reagents and deionised water. Unless specified, all ex­
periments were conducted using a bottle roller at room temperature.
The ore sample, glycine and permanganate were placed in a 2.0 L plastic
bottle with a 5 mm hole in the lid to maintain aeration. The pH was
adjusted initially with NaOH to the target pH and the bottle was rolled
on at 100 rpm. Further pH adjustments over the duration of the exper­
iments were made with lime (Ca(OH)2). Solution samples were obtained
at different times by filtering 10 mL of slurry with a 0.45 μm filter paper
and the solids were returned to the leach bottle. The filtrate was
Table 1
Mineralogical analysis of the tested gold ore samples.
Mineral name Ore A Ore B Ore C Ore D
Mineral, %

sufficient free glycine remains in the system to complex gold. The final Quartz 35 94 81 100
by-products from glycinate ion oxidisation would be mainly oxalate and Mica group 14 <1
Talc
ammonia. In the presence of sufficient permanganate, ammonia is oxi­
<1
Kaolinite-serpentine group 5
dised to nitrogen as shown in Eq. 5. Oxalate is mainly oxidised to form Dolomite 41
carbon dioxide as shown in Eq. 6. The conventional oxygen reduction Plagioclase 10
reaction is given in Eq. 7. Alunite 15
Jarosite 4
Glycine oxidation:
Rutile Group <1

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E.A. Oraby et al. Hydrometallurgy 198 (2020) 105527

Table 2
Elemental analysis of the tested gold ore samples.
Sample Au Si Al Fe Ca Mg S Mn As Cu Ni Zn

UNITS ppm % % % % % % % % % % %

Ore A 3.74 23.23 4.21 2.91 12.50 1.21 0.05 0.08 0.06 0.01 0.02 0.03
Ore B 2.45 43.1 1.18 1.08 0.12 0.28 0.246 0.01 0.002 0.003 0.006 0.003
Ore C 1.32 36.9 3.16 1.53 0.04 0.03 2.78 0.008 0.015 0.001 0.03 0.001
Ore D 2.50 44.8 0.12 1.90 0.02 0.02 0.034 0.014 0.01 0.008 0.02 0.002

analysed for gold by using atomic absorption spectrometry (AAS, Agi­

lent 55B AAS model). The final leach filtrate was analysed for a suite of Table 4
Gold recovery by glycine-permanganate mix of the tested gold ore samples at
different elements by determined by Inductively Coupled Plasma (ICP)
30% solids, pH 10.5 and room temperature (~22.1 ◦ C).
Optical Emission Spectrometry (OES) at Bureau Veritas Minerals Pty
Ltd. in Western Australia. All the solid residues were analysed in Cyanidation Time Glycine, g/L Glycine consumed, kg/t Au recovery, %

duplicate for gold analysis by fire assay. Ore A 48 2.0 1.41 85.4
Ore B 48 7.5 0.75 48.5
Ore C 48 7.5 1.00 77.3
2.4. Reagent analysis Ore D 48 7.5 1.10 83.2

Permanganate reduction by glycine has been analysed by Agilent

Carry 60 UV–Vis spectrometer. The by-products from the reaction be­
tween glycine and permanganate have been analysed by Thermo Sci­
entific™ DIONEX™ (ICS-3000) ion chromatography (IC).
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Baseline cyanidation and ore comparison
Preliminary experiments were conducted as a control test to assess
the cyanide soluble gold in the ore samples by conventional cyanidation
processes. Table 3 shows the gold recovery/ extraction by cyanidation
using 300 ppm NaCN, 30% solids, and pH 10.5. The results showed
cyanide consumption was low for these types of free milling gold ores.
The glycine-permanganate leaching system was applied to each ore.
The total permanganate added to each was 3 kgreagent/tonneore. The gold
recovery is similar for ores A and D as that for baseline cyanidation as
can be seen in Table 4. For ores B and C, which had higher amounts of
sulfide sulfur than A and D, requires further optimisation work to
improve the recovery to a comparable level as that obtained with cya­
nidation. The slightly higher gold extraction by the cyanidation than the
proposed process can be amended by conducting more fundamental and
optimisation studies to increase the gold recovery by the new process. In
essence, all cyanide recoverable gold should also be glycine recoverable.
3.2. Leaching parameter evaluation
Due to the sample availability, Ore A was selected to demonstrate the
effect of different factors on the gold recovery. Fig. 1 shows a compar­
ison between the baseline cyanidation and glycine-permanganate
leaching of ore A that was reported in Tables 1 and 2. The cyanidation
test was conducted at 30% solids, 1000 ppm NaCN, pH 10.5 and room
temperature. The glycine leach test was conducted at 30% solids, 2 g/L
glycine, 2 g/L permanganate, pH 10.5 and room temperature. The cy­
anide extractable gold was determined to be 87.1% under the stated
conditions. While the glycine-permanganate system was slower at
leaching gold, the final recovery was close to that for cyanidation at
85.1%. The faster kinetics leach rate of cyanide only leach compared to
Table 3
Gold recovery by cyanidation of the tested gold ore samples.
Cyanidation Time NaCN, kg/t Au recovery, %
Ore A 48 0.62 87.1
Ore B 48 1.05 90.8
Ore C 48 1.21 88.4
Ore D 48 0.75 84.5
glycine can be referred to the smaller molecular weight of cyanide
compared with glycine. The molar volume of HCN is 39.3 cm3/mol
whereas that of glycine is 64.7 cm3/mol at room temperature, and their
diffusion coefficients in water are 1.72 × 10− 5 cm2/s (Lötter, 2006) and
1.06 × 10− 5 cm2/s (Khanal et al., 2019) respectively. The smaller mo­
lecular size and larger diffusion coefficient of HCN in water (and its
cyanide anion in equilibrium with it) compared to glycine in water (and
its glycinate anion in equilibrium with it), leads to larger liquid state
mass transfer coefficients (via calculation of the Schmidt and Sherwood
numbers, as per the correlation for agitated tanks provided by Cussler
(2009)). Similarly, the diffusion of the larger gold glycinate away from
the gold surface is expected to be slower than the corresponding gold
cyanide complex. Steric effects on the reacting surface due to the larger
and more complex glycine may further impede the rate of glycine
attachment to the surface compared to cyanide. The precipitation of
MnO2 and Ca(C2O2) onto the reacting surface, as per Eq. 9, may lead to
further mass transfer resistance through possible product layers.
In this process, permanganate was used as an oxidant to replace the
use of peroxide with glycine (Eksteen and Oraby, 2015). Despite per­
manganate not being as strong oxidant as peroxide, it has a higher
reduction potential than oxygen (O2) as shown in Eq. 8. The overall
reaction of gold leaching in glycine and permanganate solutions can be
expressed by Eq. 9. The presence of a strong oxidant such as perman­
ganate and MnO2 overcomes the limitation of oxygen diffusion and
solubility. The better results in the presence of permanganate can also be
attributed to the increase of hydroxyl radical, which acts as a strong
oxidant for gold leaching.
MnO−4 + 2H2 O + 3e(aq)→MnO2 ↓ + 4OH − E0 = + 0.56 V (SHE) (8)
Au + 2MnO−4 + 4(NH2 CH 2 COO)− + O2 →Au(NH 2 CH 2 COO)2
+ 2MnO2 ↓ + 2C2 O−4 2 + 2NH3 (aq) + 2OH − (9)
As per reaction stated in Eq. 5, ammonia itself can be oxidised to
nitrogen by permanganate.
3.2.1. Effect of glycine concentration
Fig. 2 shows the effect of varying glycine concentration on gold re­
covery in the presence of 1.0 g/L potassium permanganate at pH 10.5.
The gold dissolution rate after 4 h of leaching was found to be propor­
tional to the glycine concentration. From an economic perspective
glycine may need to be recycled if high concentrations are used. These
results should be contrasted against the strong concentrations of 93.75
g/L (and elevated temperature of 60 ◦ C) used by Altinkaya et al. (2020).
Permanganate used with glycine thus allows a significant reduction in
process intensity.
Table 5 summarises the salient differences between this work and

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E.A. Oraby et al. Hydrometallurgy 198 (2020) 105527

Fig. 1. Gold extraction by cyanidation and glycine-permanganate from gold oxide ore at leach conditions of 2 g/L glycine, 30% solid content, 100% -75 μm, pH 10.5,
2.0 g/L permanganate at room temperature. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of
this article.)

Fig. 2. Effect of glycine on gold extraction from gold oxide ore by Glyleach™ process at leach conditions of glycine, 30% solid content, 100% − 75 μm, pH 10.5, 1.0
g/L permanganate at room temperature. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

demonstrates the options available for glycine leaching, in the presence

Table 5 and absence of a catalytic oxidant. It is clear that each approach has its
Comparison of process conditions required for cyanide free gold leaching.
merits and that an evaluation of the techno-economics of the whole
Leach parameter Altinkaya et al. This work process (including downstream processing and reagent recovery and
(2020)
recycling) is required to decide on the approach most fit for a given
Temperature (◦ C) 60 Ambient (23) need.
Oxygenation 1 L/min None, other than air ingress
through lid
Optimal Glycine 93.75 2.00
3.2.2. Effect of permanganate concentration
Concentration [g/] Fig. 3 shows the effect of permanganate concentration. Interestingly
Optimal pH 12.0 10.5 the leach rate is initially faster at 2 g/L permanganate however the
Agitation, rpm Overhead agitation, Bottle roll 100 rpm overall gold recovery is higher with only 1 g/L permanganate. Gold
900 rpm
extraction reaches 76.4% after 48 h in the presence of 1 g/L perman­
%Solids 10% 30%
Gold Ore Grade (g/t) 5.4 3.74 (Ore A) ganate compared to 67.9% in 2 g/L. The decrease in the overall gold
Grind d80 = 86 μm d100 = 75 μm with higher permanganate can be attributed to the oxidisation of glycine
Oxidant/ Catalyst Addition None KMnO4 (1 g/L) by excess permanganate (Insausti et al., 1992).
Recovery 90% 85% The loss of glycine by oxidation can be made up by increasing the
Leach duration (h) 24 48
glycine concentration and thus the total amount of available glycine.
This result was shown in the comparison with cyanide in Fig. 1 with
that of Altinkaya et al., 2020. In both cases the ores are essentially oxide leaching at 2 g/L glycine where the overall gold recovery was 85.1%.
gold ores. The ratio of permanganate to glycine appears to be very important, a
The comparison of the two cyanide free glycine approaches further test with 0.5 g/L glycine and 2 g /L permanganate returned a

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E.A. Oraby et al. Hydrometallurgy 198 (2020) 105527

Fig. 3. Effect of permanganate on gold extraction from gold oxide ore by glycine at leach conditions of 1.0 g/L glycine, 30% solid content, 100% -75 μm, pH 10.5,
permanganate and room temperature. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

gold recovery of only 0.5%. In this case virtually all the glycine was
likely to have been oxidised.
3.2.3. Permanganate consumption
The permanganate concentration in leach solutions can be moni­
tored by UV–vis spectroscopy at a wavelength of 525 nm. The UV–Vis
scan of the permanganate solution is shown in Fig. 4. A straight-line
standard calibration curve for measuring permanganate was generated
as shown in Fig. 5.
From the calibration curve shown in Fig. 5, permanganate con­
sumption due to the reaction with glycine can be easily monitored. Fig. 6
shows the fast consumption of permanganate in the presence of 1.0 g/L
glycine in the solution. The permanganate concentration was monitored
by UV–Vis spectrometer using the calibration curve shown in Fig. 5. Full
consumption of permanganate was achieved after only 4 h of leaching.
In a solution of glycine and permanganate at pH 10.5 using NaOH as
a pH modifier, the precipitate from reaction 4 was analysed by Scanning
Electron Microscopy/Energy Dispersive X-Ray Spectroscopy (SEM/EDS)
as shown in Fig. 7 and Table 6. The ratio of manganese to oxygen in the
EDS indicates that the manganese species is MnO2. Although no crys­
talline MnO2 species were detected by X-ray diffraction, it is expected
that the precipitated particles show too poor crystallinity and appears
amorphous to the XRD.
While the precipitation of MnO2 is not problematic during agitated
tank leaching, it may prove to be problematic during percolation
leaching of larger particles, where the precipitate is expected to cause
pore blockage and restrict the flow of solution.
3.2.4. Effect of pH
Fig. 8 shows the gold recovery at different levels of pH. It can be seen
leaching at the lower pH of 9.5 commences at a slower rate, however
after 48 h recovery was slightly higher than the tests at pH 10.5 and
11.5. This result suggests that a lower usage of lime and/or caustic may
be possible and also allows the use of poorer quality water, which can
have a buffering effect at alkaline pH due to magnesium in saline waters
(typical of Western Australian gold fields).
The caustic and lime consumptions during these tests are shown in
Table 7. Leaching at a lower pH of 9.5 is more efficient based on gold
recovery and reagent consumption. Leaching at a natural pH of 6.5 leads
to a very poor gold dissolution. Only 10% gold was extracted after 48 h
at a pH of 6.5. The lower gold recovery at pH 6.5 is due to the presence of
glycine in its zwitterion form which is not effective to leach gold as the
anion form of glycinate at pH 9.5.

Fig. 4. Spectrum of potassium permanganate solution in UV–Visible region at pH 10.5 in the absence of glycine.

5
E.A. Oraby et al.
Fig. 5. Calibration line of potassium permanganate using in UV–Visible region at a wavelength of 525 nm.
Fig. 6. Permanganate measurement in the presence and absence of 1.0 g/L glycine at pH 10.5 and room temperature.
3.2.5. Effect of pH modifier
Using only lime as a pH modifier was tested and it was found the gold
recovery was 81.4% compared with 85.1% using a dual (caustic-lime)
pH modifier. The lime consumption during the lime-only test was 12.6
kg/t. The lower gold recovery with high lime use may be attributed to
the precipitation of calcium oxalate (Eq. 10) on the gold surface. Eq. 4
showed that oxalate is one of the by-products of glycine oxidation which
was also proven by ion chromatography (IC) analysis of the leach so­
lutions as shown in Table 8. Oxalate was formed as a by-product from
the reaction between glycine and permanganate. Adding lime as a
source of calcium leads to the precipitation of calcium oxalate.
In the absence of calcium ions to stabilise the oxalate, it can oxidise
further to carbon dioxide (Eq. 6) which may also lead to calcium car­
bonate (calcite) precipitation on the gold surface.
C2 O4 − 2 + Ca+2 →CaC2 O4 (10)
Fig. 9 shows the XRD pattern of the highly insoluble calcium oxalate
(solubility of 6.7 × 10− 4 g/L at 20 ◦ C) which was formed after treating
the glycine-permanganate by-product mix solutions by lime. It can be
seen calcium oxalate was indeed formed and some residual lime was left
with the precipitated solids. Whereas oxalic acid is a mild poison using
the NFPA 704 classification, calcium oxalate is not (i.e. calcium oxalate
is not poisonous even under chronic exposure). Given the excess of lime
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Hydrometallurgy 198 (2020) 105527
and the propensity of free oxalate to further oxidise, there is no detec­
tible free (i.e. dissolved) oxalate in the system.
3.2.6. Effect of oxidant type
The effect of different oxidants on the gold dissolution was studied
using hydrogen peroxide, sodium chlorate, potassium ferricyanide and
potassium iodide. The results are shown in Fig. 10. It can be easily seen
that permanganate is the most effective. Adding ferricyanide showed a
slight gold extraction improvement but the rate may only be suitable for
heap or in-situ leaching. Hydrogen peroxide was covered in depth in
prior research (Eksteen and Oraby, 2015), and was shown to require
temperatures above 40 ◦ C for any significant leaching. It is therefore
clear that potassium (or sodium) permanganate is the preferred oxidant
for agitated tank leaching at room temperature. The reason for the better
performance of permanganate over the other oxidants is that it generates
MnO2 in a colloidal form which acts as an additional oxidant during
leaching (Pratesa et al., 2019) as well as being a stronger oxidant (based
upon half reaction E0 ranking) in alkaline media than the other oxidants.
3.2.7. Impurity dissolution
The concentrations of different impurities in the final leach solutions
after leaching for 48 h are shown in Table 9. The analysis of manganese
in the final leach solution indicates and confirms that manganese has
E.A. Oraby et al. Hydrometallurgy 198 (2020) 105527

Fig. 7. SEM image of MnO2 precipitate after the reaction between glycine and permanganate.

Table 7
Table 6 Gold recovery and caustic and lime consumption by glycine-permanganate mix
Elemental analysis (atomic %) of selected points in Fig. 7. of the tested gold ore samples using 1.0 g/L glycine, 1 g/L permanganate and
Spectrum O (%) Na (%) Al Si (%) K (%) Mn (%)
30% solid content.
pH NaOH, kg/t Lime, kg/t Gold recovery, %
Spectrum 1 61.4 4.9 0.2 0.0 2.9 30.5
Spectrum 2 59.1 5.1 0.2 0.0 3.0 32.4 9.5 1.07 0.82 79.6
Spectrum 3 67.5 3.9 0.2 0.1 2.3 26.0 10.5 2.10 2.15 76.4
11.5 4.81 3.83 69.8

been precipitated from the solutions as MnO2. Some manganese disso­

lution was observed at low pH, where the extent of reaction between Table 8
glycine and permanganate was low. Dissolved manganese was also Ion chromatography analysis of the by-products of 2 g/L glycine oxidisation by
observed by increasing the permanganate concentration from 1.0 g/L to 1.0 g/L permanganate at pH 10.5.
2.0 g/L in the presence of 1.0 g/L glycine. The presence of soluble Sample ID Concentration [mg/L]
manganese at 2.0 g/L permanganate is due to its excess over glycine.
Oxalate Formate Acetate Lactate

Before lime addition 281 <10 <10 <10

After lime addition 63 <10 <10 <10

Fig. 8. Effect of pH on gold extraction from gold oxide ore by glycine at leach conditions of 1.0 g/L glycine, 30% solid content, 100% -75 μm, pH, 1.0 g/L per­
manganate and room temperature. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

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E.A. Oraby et al. Hydrometallurgy 198 (2020) 105527

Fig. 9. XRD patterns of the precipitated solids after treating glycine-permanganate solution mix with Ca(OH)2.

Fig. 10. Effect of oxidant on gold extraction from gold oxide ore by glycine at leach conditions of 1.0 g/L glycine, 30% solid content, 100% -75 μm, pH 10.5, 1.0 g/L
oxidant and room temperature. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

Table 9
Impurity dissolution during cyanide and glycine leaching of gold oxide ore at different leach conditions.
Leach conditions Cu Fe Si S Ni Zn Ca Mn

Glycine, g/L pH permanganate, g/L mg/L mg/L mg/L mg/L mg/L mg/L mg/L mg/L

0.5 10.5 1.0 BDL BDL 32.0 18.0 1.2 BDL 7.5 BDL
1.0 10.5 1.0 0.5 BDL 26.0 18.0 1.8 BDL 10.5 BDL
2.0 10.5 1.0 1.5 BDL 30.0 16.0 2.6 BDL 6.5 BDL
1.0 6.5 1.0 5.0 BDL 0.5 28.0 2.5 BDL 1.6 158
1.0 9.5 1.0 1.0 BDL 12.0 18.0 3.0 BDL 4.5 BDL
1.0 11.5 1.0 BDL BDL 114 16.0 1.6 BDL 11.6 BDL
1.0 10.5 0.5 0.5 BDL 15.0 19.0 BDL BDL 0.6 BDL
1.0 10.5 2.0 4.5 0.5 24.0 86.0 1.6 BDL 7.5 35.1
2.0 10.5 2.0 5.0 0.5 20.0 26.0 1.6 BDL 10.5 BDL
1.0 g/L cyanide 10.5 – 9.5 2.0 24.0 40.0 19.8 1.6 91.0 BDL

8
E.A. Oraby et al.
3.2.8. Gold recovery by carbon-in-pulp (CIP) and carbon-in-leach (CIL)
modes
Two different leach tests were conducted to establish if gold can be
recovered by carbon in the presence of glycine and its oxidisation by-
products. Gold glycinate adsorption on carbon has been proved and
studied in detail for different glycine systems and reported elsewhere
(Oraby and Eksteen, 2015; Tauetsile et al., 2018a, 2018b; Eksteen et al.,
2018; Altinkaya et al., 2020). Leaching was conducted at 1.0 g/L glycine
and 1.0 g/L potassium permanganate at pH 10.5. Fresh activated car­
bon, PICAGOLD® G210AS (Jacobi Carbons) produced from coconut
shell was used. The carbon was mechanically sized to − 2.36 + 2.00 mm.
Carbon was added at 2.0 g/L at the start of leaching to simulate CIL; or
after 24 h of leaching to simulate CIP.
Recovery for the CIL test was 85.8% and for CIP 85.1% based on fire
assay analysis of the gold residue after leaching. This result indicates
that a conventional downstream recovery process using activated car­
bon can be used. Both CIL and CIP systems are applicable. Fig. 11 shows
the gold in solution during the CIL and CIP leach tests. Once the carbon
was added to the leach pulp after 24 h, essentially all the gold was
adsorbed and the concentration in the final solutions was only 0.008
mg/L. In the CIL mode, with the leaching and the adsorption happening
in parallel, gold in solution gradually increases up to 4 h after which the
leaching slows down and the adsorption continues until the gold in so­
lution reaches 0.012 mg/L after 48 h. Table 10 shows the gold and other
elements loaded onto the carbon during the CIL and CIP leach tests. The
presence of Mn on carbon in the CIL mode can be explained because the
carbon was added at the start of leaching, i.e. before the Mn precipitated
to MnO2.
3.2.9. Glycine-permanganate versus cyanidation
The most obvious benefit of the proposed glycine-permanganate
system is the elimination of cyanide in the process while operating at
similar overall operating conditions as cyanidation, which can be used
where cyanide is not allowed. The proposed process reagent cost is
anticipated to be higher than cyanide (e.g. initial cyanide concentration
was 0.3 g/L versus glycine at 1.0 g/L). However, controlling the addition
of permanganate (around USD2/kg*) and recycling some of the glycine
(around USD1.60 per kg*) will definitely improve the process economics
compared to conventional cyanidation (with cyanide costs around USD
2.5/kg*). Not included though, is the cost of cyanide detoxification,
which is not required for the glycine process. Detoxification costs range
from USD 1.5/kgWAD CN to USD 4.5/kgWAD CN (based on reagents
Fig. 11. Gold in solutions during CIL and CIP modes for gold recovery from glycine-permanganate solutions at leach conditions of 1.0 g/L glycine, 1 g/L per­
manganate, 30% solid content, pH 10.5 in the presence of 2.0 g/L carbon. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to
the web version of this article.)
9
Hydrometallurgy 198 (2020) 105527
Table 10
Gold loaded on carbon from CIP and CIP modes for gold recovery using 2 g/L
fresh carbon.
Sample Ag Au Ca Cu Mn
UNITS ppm ppm ppm ppm ppm
CIP Carbon 38.9 596 1300 300
<0.5
CIL Carbon 66.9 610 2300 160 15.2
only (Adams, 2016)). In areas where cyanide is not allowed, this process
provides a feasible alternative as the process is quite robust and use the
same underlying CIP/CIL technology used in conventional cyanidation,
without the concomitant safety, health, and environmental risks.
*Approximate and indicative bulk values available to the authors at
the time of writing (can vary significantly by location and purchase
contract). The authors do not take any responsibility for the accuracy of
these prices which are only given for illustrative purposes.
4. Conclusions
Previous studies have shown that cyanide-free glycine leaching of
gold is limited by slow kinetics and so is only likely suitable for heap, vat
and in-situ leaching. The addition of a very low dose of cyanide can
increase the rate enough for tank leaching, but this does not completely
solve the environmental issues associated with cyanide. Alternatively,
one needs to raise the temperature, use direct oxygenation with high
glycine concentration and high pH to improve the gold leach rate.
In this study, it was found that adding a strong oxidant such as
permanganate to a cyanide-free glycine leach significantly enhances the
rate and extent of gold extraction to approximate the same level of gold
leaching obtained with cyanide after the same leach duration of 48 h.
The addition of permanganate should be controlled based on the stoi­
chiometric reaction with glycine to avoid the oxidation of the total
available glycine in solution. Different leach conditions and parameters
were evaluated to investigate their impacts on the gold leach rate and
overall gold recovery from the glycine-permanganate system. It was
shown that an excess of glycine relative to permanganate was required
in all cases to ensure that sufficient residual glycine is present to com­
plex the gold.
The highest gold recovery from the glycine permanganate system
was 85.1%, compared to 87.4% for a conventional cyanidation. This was
achieved in solutions containing 1.0 g/L glycine and 1.0 g/L
E.A. Oraby et al.
permanganate. Although a portion of the glycine is oxidised by per­
manganate, the overall reagent consumption is low enough to be
considered as a practical and economic alternative to cyanide leaching,
while operating under comparable overall conditions (temperature,
grind, %solids, pH, carbon adsorption approach and residence time).
The leaching can be conducted at low pH (pH 9.5) which will make the
process suitable for any sites that have low-quality (such as saline)
water. After glycine leaching, gold can be recovered by carbon in leach
(CIL) or carbon in pulp (CIP) modes. Further studies are currently being
conducted to have a better understanding of the gold leaching mecha­
nism and the effects of different parameters on the reagent
consumptions.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors hereby declare:
1. Messrs. Oraby and Eksteen are the listed inventors of a number of
patents that utilises glycine as a lixiviant for numerous precious and
base metals from various materials such as ores, wastes, concen­
trates, etc., and which is background Intellectual Property to the
research presented in this paper.
2. Should processes be commercialised that utilises the patents
mentioned in Point no. 3 above, Messrs. Oraby and Eksteen may be
eligible to receive royalty income.
3. Dr. Greg O’Connor has no conflict of interest to declare.
Acknowledgements
The financial support from Curtin University is gratefully
acknowledged.
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