U.S. Mine Makers Goes Green With Their Gold Recovery Process
Monday, August 4th 2008
U.S. Mine Makers, Inc. prides itself as “eco-friendly,” and this company model is evident in the gold and platinum recovery process they have developed and are implementing in their new pilot plant. The company’s new pilot plant and their future full-scale production plant are being designed to be much more environmentally friendly than gold processing plants that have traditionally used highly toxic forms of Cyanide to leach the gold from the ore. USMM has developed and tested a process that uses Sodium Bromide in place of Sodium Cyanide resulting in much more “eco-friendly” waste byproducts in their recovery process.
For years, mining and ore processing companies have been recovering gold and other precious metals using a Sodium Cyanide leaching process. The vast majority of gold mining companies have used this environmentally damaging process. Milling and heap leaching require cycling of millions of liters of alkaline water containing high concentrations of potentially toxic NaCN, free cyanide, and metal cyanide complexes that are frequently accessible and hazardous to wildlife. Some countries such as Argentina are starting to outlaw the use of Cyanide in gold and precious metal processing and the environmental impact is being investigated by other countries and environmental agencies as well.
The leach process that USMM is using utilizes Sodium Bromide (NaBR). Sodium Bromide and other waste byproducts in USMM’s recovery process present a very low environmental hazard, and USMM’s research has proven Sodium Bromide to be an effective and efficient catalyst in their metal leaching process.
U.S. Mine Makers CEO Ronald Bell stated, “Since our company’s inception we have been committed to the use of environmentally friendly business practices and processes. For years we have been involved in the remediation and restoration of toxic mine sites, and now we are extending our ‘eco-friendly’ and ‘Green’ philosophy to our gold and platinum metals recovery process. We are committed to creating value for our shareholder in everything we do, but we also want to create that value in a sustainable and ‘eco-friendly’ way.”
About U.S. Mine Makers, Inc.
U.S. Mine Makers, Inc. is a mining and exploration company using “eco-friendly” technology to recover precious metals such as gold and platinum group metals from high grade ore concentrate and rock. Besides its precious metals mining operations, the company also prides itself as an “eco-friendly” mine restoration company that uses its own modern technology to clean up toxic mine sites. The company motto is, “We Clean the Planet — One Mine Site at a Time.” U.S. Mine Makers, Inc. has executive offices in Palm Desert, California and maintains a web site at: http://www.usminemakers.com.
