Although selection of an appropriate cyanide treatment process involves consideration of many factors, the number of candidate processes for a particular application can usually be narrowed following chemical characterization of the
untreated solution or slurry, quantification of the volumes to be treated, consideration of the environmental setting, and review of the applicable regulations.
In the following sections, several treatment processes are discussed along with their typical
areas of application.
Most cyanide destruction processes operate on the principle of
converting cyanide into one or more less toxic compounds through an oxidation
reaction.
There are several destruction processes that are well proven to produce
treated effluents with low levels of cyanide and metals.
Some of the more important chemical processes are discussed in the following section