Background: The majority of small-scale gold miners worldwide, including those in Mozambique, use mercury to extract gold. Over the last fifty years, gold production from small-scale mining has been accelerating and consequently the amount of mercury released to the environment has increased dramatically, causing major global health problems. In 2018, a team from the Danish non-governmental organization Diálogos introduced the mercury-free gold extraction method in the Cabo Delgado province in Mozambique in the villages of Waqueia and Nanlia.
Objectives: The objective of this project was to teach local miners this method to reduce mercury pollution. An additional objective was to compare the local gold extraction method and the mercury-free gold extraction method in terms of gold recovery. The hypothesis was that the level of gold recovery would be higher with the mercury-free method compared to the locally used amalgamation method.
Read the entire article here.