“Polymetal Managing Company” JSC, Saint Petersburg, Russia:

G. A. Filyanin, Head of Concentration and Analytical Control Office, e-mail: Filjanin@polymetal.ru

“Polymetal Engineering” JSC, Saint Petersburg, Russia:
N. V. Vorobev-Desyatovskiy, Head of Hydrometallurgy Office, e-mail: Desatovs@polymetal.ru

This article describes the history of creation of Amursk hydrometallurgical plant (2012) and its driving up to the project capacity (2013). This plant is the first Russian autoclave enterprise, which processed refractory gold-containing concentrates. There are considered the basic advantages of autoclave oxidation of pyrite and arsenopyrite concentrates, containing “invisible” gold, in comparison with other existing methods of processing of similar materials. There are given the basic parameters of operation of enterprise and its main production stages. There are described the problems, which had to be solved during the pre-commissioning. Nowadays, the enterprise is driven up to the project capacity. This makes possible to process the refractory gold-containing concentrates with productivity of 225 th. t per year and extraction of gold from concentrate into dore bar (94%). At the same time, the reached grade of transformation of sulfur atoms from pyrite and arsenopyrite into sulfuric acid and sulfates is 96–98%, and specific consumption of oxygen for 1 kg of sulfur is 2.3 kg. Concentrate is oxidated in five-section autoclave with useful capacity of 153 m³ at the temperature range of 203–206 ^oC in automatic mode. Oxygen with not lower than 93% frequency is used for oxidation process and obtained in short-cycle adsorption unit from air. In comparison with exis ting foreign analogues, distinctive feature of process flowsheet of Amursk hydrometallurgical plant is presence of closed water circulation, which is reached due to use of purification of reused water in multistage reverse osmosis. Results show the efficiency of this production, which can be the processing center, making possible to process the concentrates of refractory ores of Far Eastern and other closed Russian regions.