It is well known that iron sulphide minerals, arsenopyrite, pyrite and pyrrhotite are host minerals for gold. Most the time, gold can be extracted by cyanidation and can be categorized as not refractory. It’s possible to make an iron sulphide-gold concentrate and perform a selective separation between the iron mineral hosting gold and non- valuable iron sulphide minerals. This separation is practiced by flotation under different conditions that are base on reduction-oxidation conditions.
The presence of arsenopyrite can be an issue if the process selected is flotation and cyanidation due to the high consumption of oxygen. In this case special pre-treatments before cyanidation can be included in order to minimize this problem. There is other potential problem when the final product is obtained by flotation and must be commercialized. The problem is the high content of arsenic. If the mineral is refractory to cyanidation, the problem is more serious.
If the ore body has pyrrhotite, the cyanidation process can be problematic due to this iron sulphide mineral takes very easy the oxygen from the environment. The leaching process is not efficient even at cyanide consumptions.