A refractory ore generally contains sulfide minerals, organic carbon, or both.
Sulfide minerals often trap or occlude gold particles, making it difficult for the leach solution to complex with the gold. In the event that there are high levels of copper or silver present, leaching of the precipitate using nitric or sulfuric acids may be required. Gold parting is primarily the removing of silver from gold. arious techniques have been practised! salt cementation from ancient times, parting using distilled mineral acids from medieval times, and in modern times using chlorination using the "iller process and electrolysis using the #ohlwill process. "ost metals occur in nature in their oxidi$ed form %ores& and thus must be reduced to their metallic forms. 'he ore is dissolved following some preprocessing in an aqueous electrolyte or in a molten salt and the resulting solution is electroly$ed. 'he metal is deposited on the cathode %either in solid or in liquid form&, while the anodic reaction is usually oxygen evolution. Several metals are naturally present as metal sulfides! these include copper, lead, molybdenum, cadmium, nickel, silver, cobalt, and $inc. In addition, gold and platinum group metals are associated with sulfidic base metal ores. "ost metal sulfides or their salts, are electrically conductive and this allows electrochemical redox reactions to efficiently occur in the molten state or in aqueous solutions. (lectrowinning, also called electroextraction, is the electrodeposition of metals from their ores that have been put in solution via a process commonly referred to as leaching. (lectrorefining uses a similar process to remove impurities from a metal. (lectrowinning is the oldest industrial electrolytic process. 'he (nglish chemist )umphry *avy obtained sodium metal in elemental form for the first time in +,-. by the electrolysis of molten sodium hydroxide. (lectrorefining of copper was first demonstrated experimentally by "aximilian, *uke of /euchtenberg in +,0.. 'he ) 1ycle 2ecause of its low molecular weight hydrogen can leave (arth3s atmosphere.
It has been suggested that this occurred on a grand scale in the past and that this is why today the (arth is mostly irreversibly oxidised. #ater is produced when hydrogen is burned. "olecular clouds of )4 are associated with star formation. )ydrogen plays a vital role in powering stars through proton5proton reaction and 167 cycle nuclear fusion. 'hroughout the universe, hydrogen is mostly found in the atomic and plasma states whose properties are quite different from molecular hydrogen. As a plasma, hydrogen3s electron and proton are not bound together, resulting in very high electrical conductivity and high emissivity %producing the light from the Sun and other stars&. 'he charged particles are highly influenced by magnetic and electric fields. #ater is formed by the combination of oxygen and hydrogen. *uring photo synthesis hydrogen is produced by the dissociation of water which forms glucose after combing with carbon dioxide. 'he 6 cycle "any small nodules are present in the roots of leguminous plants which contain bacteria named 8hi$obium leguminosarum. 'hese bacteria convert atmospheric nitrogen into nitrates. 9lants absorb nitrate salts through their roots . Apart from this, a fraction of nitrogen in atmosphere changes in to nitric acid during lightning which forms nitrates with rain water in soil. 'hae 1 cycle "ost of the carbon within organisms comes from the carbon dioxide %174& in the air.'he atmosphere is -.-: mol ; in 174. )owever, the greatest physical reservoir of carbon is not atmospheric carbon dioxide but instead is located in the (arth3s crust and is not easily accessible to biological organisms. <igures +..4. and +..4, show the reservoirs of carbon and the
transactions that take place in the carbon cycle. +. 1arbon fixation. 9hotosynthetic carbon fixation is responsible for the vast ma=ority of the carbon fixed in nature. It involves the use of light energy to "fix" atmospheric carbon dioxide into sugars %and subsequently into other biological molecules&> 174 ? )47 ? energy 55555@ %1)47&n ? 74 9hotosynthetic carbon fixation may be done in both oxic and anoxic environments. In the reaction above, use of water as an electron donor results in the formation of oxygen. 'his is the chemistry done by oxygenic organisms such as algae, cyanobacteria, and green plants. Alternate electron donors are used by photosynthetic carbon fixers, such as the phototrophic green or purple sulfur bacteria, living in anoxic environments. 1arbon occurs in all known organic life and is the basis of organic chemistry. #hen united with hydrogen, it forms various hydrocarbons which are important to industry as refrigerants, lubricants, solvents, as chemical feedstock for the manufacture of plastics and petrochemicals and as fossil fuels. #hen combined with oxygen and hydrogen, carbon can form many groups of important biological compounds including sugars, lignans, chitins, alcohols, fats, and aromatic esters, carotenoids and terpenes. #ith nitrogen it forms alkaloids, and with the addition of sulfur also it forms antibiotics, amino acids, and rubber products. #ith the addition of phosphorus to these other elements, it forms *6A and 86A, the chemical5code carriers of life, and adenosine triphosphate %A'9&, the most important energy5transfer molecule in all living cells. A metallurgical assay is a compositional analysis of an ore, metal, or alloy. Silver is assayed by titration, gold by cupellation and platinum by inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry %I19 7(S&.
