Case Study - Peru

Peru is one of the top ten gold producing countries in the world producing an average of 125 tonnes per year. Whilst there are many legally run mines in the country there are also a large amount of illegal mining operations in play which are hard to control due to the remote locations they set up in. The unregulated mines are causing pollution through the use of mercury in the gold amalgamation process and further environmental damage through land clearance.

Conservation X ASGM Competition 2022

Dr. Leigh Cassidy spent many months during 2022 in the Madre de Dios region of Peru with our DRAM technology in the field as a participant in the Conservation X ASGM competition 2022. Working with a small local legal gold mine owner she set to work using DRAM to remove metals left in mine tailings pond after gold removal.

DRAM had not previously been trialed in a tropical region, so had to be adapted on site using local organic materials for filtration. With help from the onsite team, Leigh completed the trial confirming the efficiency of DRAM in metals removal from the mine tailings seeing over 95% removal of all the analytes measured. This success was recognised by the judges and DRAM technology went on to be a grand prize winner in Conservation X ASGM competition.