Prospects for thiourea as a leaching agent in Colombian gold small-scale mining: A comprehensive review

Thiourea, as an alternative medium, is one of the most promising leaching agents for gold recovery by its commercial benefits and research challenges associated with performance environmental impacts. This review article describes operational conditions use Thiourea vs cyanide, chemistry, limitations, toxicity factors, environment, processes. Although thiourea extraction processes have not been applied on a large scale due to instability reagent, potential overcome limitations cyanide attractive process; pH, potential, oxidant dosage, temperature control, solubilized species are achieved. These can be recovered from pregnant leach solution through methods such activated carbon absorption adsorption, polyurethane foams, ion exchange, electrodeposition.