Revolutionizing sustainability by using a cyanogenic plant-based leaching technology to extract valuable minerals from ore in LSM and in ASM toxic tailings wastes processing.
Bruce, President/CEO of Manipueira Gold Recovery Technology, Inc., (“MGRT”) a technology development company, having a sustainable low-cost plant-based leaching solution using manipueira as a lixiviant which recovers more gold from ore and is destined to impact the future use of mercury in artisanal small-scale mining (“ASM”), the planet’s largest anthropogenic source of deadly global mercury pollution, and the cyanide salts used to leach tailings wastes in ASM and ore in large scale mining (“LSM”).
Manipueira, an extract solution from the cyanogenic bitter cassava plant, when used as a lixiviant has been scientifically documented and presented by Dr. Marcello ("Marcello") Veiga, P.Eng., Professor Emeritus University of British Columbia, Company Advisor, and Dr. Pariya Torkaman to recover 99.6% of the gold from mercury contaminated tailings wastes and 99.3% of the gold from ore in 2 hours
Manipueira is proven to leach 2 - 3 times more gold from ore than by using mercury, and gold faster and less costly from toxic tailings wastes than by using hard to handle cyanide salts.
In 2021, global cassava production was estimated at 308 million tonnes. Africa's total production was about 203 million tonnes (about 56% of world production), followed by Asia (84 million tonnes), Ecuador (65 million tonnes) and America with 26 million tonnes. In the same period, Nigeria produced about 60 million tonnes.
Manipueira solution contains 267 mg/l of aqueous free cyanide, has a pH of 5.5, and represents up to 30% of the plant’s weight. It stinks when fermented, attracts insects, and is recklessly discarded directly into the environment by the flour manufacturers causing biodiversity destruction, creating human health threats, contaminating the soil and drinking water, and polluting the rivers. The annual discard of the cassava wastewater represents a global cyanide loss of an estimated 92 million tonnes.
According to Nural Kuyucak and Ata Akcil 2013 publication; Cyanide and removal options from effluents in gold mining and metallurgical processes, “the extraction processes of gold, silver, and various metals from ores consume 13 % of 1.1 million metric tons of hydrogen cyanide produced worldwide annually.”
The Company drafted preliminary design schematics in an interactive flow chart prototyping the world’s first sustainable manipueira precious metals leaching center (Manipueira Leaching Center) for processing ore and toxic tailings wastes based on the conversion of an 80 tonne/day whole ore mercury amalgamation chilean processing center (Chilean Center) in Ecuador’s Portovelo-Zaruma mining district.
“The symbiosis of artisanal ore processors and flour makers is a win-win situation to reduce mercury environmental pollution while mitigating an unintended consequence of harvesting the bitter cassava plant.”
Marcello Veiga