A new technology for enhancing microwave roasting of gold bearing high arsenic sulphide concentrate with various water contents was proposed. The influence of water content and roasting time on microwave roasting of gold concentrate was investigated, and the mechanism of microwave roasting of gold bearing high arsenic sulphide concentrate with various water contents was analyzed. The results show that the removal rate of sulfur and iodide/iodine leaching rate of gold are mainly dependent on water content. The removal rate of sulfur and the leaching rate of gold reaches 87.95% and 75.08%, respectively, under the conditions of water content of 9% with microwave roasting for 30 min. After the dried concentrate sample and the wetted concentrate sample with 9% water content were roasted in the microwave oven for 60 min, the latter was found by SEM to be more porous than former, its specific surface area was found to increase from 25.6 to 32.7 m(2)/g. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.