Russian scientists suggest a new technology for extracting gold and silver from complex solutions.
      
      Chemists finally found a less toxic alternative for cyanide, a reagent, widely used in gold extraction from ores and recyclable materials.
      
      New reagent, thiocyanate, works almost the same way as cyanide – it forms complexes with gold or silver. These complexes can be isolated via ion-exchange resins – they replace chlorine ions in an ion-exchange column. Then metal complexes are eluted from the column, and desired metals are extracted by means of electrolysis, for instance.
      
      Source: Science & Technologies