Treatment of effluents from artisanal gold mining

Artisanal gold mining is one of the main sources of environmental mercury contamination. Even though there are environmental hazards and health risks, the amalgamation process using mercury to recover gold is used. Workers and riverside community adsorb mercury into the body either by ingestion or inhalation. In order to recover the residual gold, the tailings from the amalgamation process are leached in an aqueous cyanide solution. The resulting effluent from leaching contains cyano-mercury complexes, which are discharged into local water bodies. However, very little is known about the behavior of mercury cyanide complexes and what can be done to remove it.

This work aims to investigate adsorption processes for removing mercury cyanide complexes before releasing the effluents to the environment. Waste-based alternative adsorbents, such as as fruit peels and animal by-products have been studied. The aim of the study is to obtain a viable, efficient and environmentally friendly adsorption as a potential route for miners. In addition, the proposal aims the least amount of interference possible in the mining process already established.