This paper presents a method for externalising and formalising knowledge involving the selection of hydrometallurgical process flowsheets for gold extraction from ores. A case-based reasoning (CBR) system was built using an open source software myCBR 3.0. The aim of the systems is to recommend flowsheet alternatives for processing a potential gold ore deposit. Nine attributes: Ore type, Gold ore grade, Gold distribution, Gold grain size, Sulfide present, Arsenic sulfide, Copper sulfide, Iron sulfide and Clay present were modelled and several literature sources of actual gold mines and processes were used for acquiring cases for the system. After preliminary testing, functional evaluation of the built CBR system was carried out by using five real mining projects as test cases. Additionally, human experts in the field of gold hydrometallurgy were interviewed to demonstrate the benefits of the CBR system as it holds no human biases towards any processing techniques. It was found that the suggestions of the CBR system provided useful information and direction for further process design and performed well compared to the interviewed human experts, thus confirming that the system is of practical relevance to the process engineer designing an industrial gold processing plant. The current model was found to be a functioning basis for further development through additional attributes, adjusted attribute weighting and increased number of cases.Peer reviewe

Hydrometallurgical researchers, and other professionals alike, invest significant amounts of time reading scientific articles, technical notes, and other scientific documents, while looking for the most relevant information for their particular research interest. In an attempt to save the researcher’s time, this study presents an information retrieval tool using case-based reasoning. The tool was built for comparing scientific articles concerning cyanide-free leaching of gold ores/concentrates/tailings. Altogether, 50 cases of experiments were gathered in a case base. 15 different attributes related to the treatment of the raw material and the leaching conditions were selected to compare the cases. The attributes were as follows: Pretreatment, Overall method, Complexant source, Oxidant source, Complexant concentration, Oxidant concentration, Temperature, pH, Redox-potential, Pressure, Materials of construction, Extraction, Extraction rate, Reagent consumption, and Solid-liquid ratio. The resulting retrieval tool (LeachSim) was able to rank the scientific articles according to their similarity with the user’s research interest. Such a tool could eventually aid the user in finding the most relevant information, but not replace thorough understanding and human expertise.