Innovation Mining’s RSOLV delivers 99.6% gold recovery from Alaska placer mine concentrates

Innovation Mining Inc. has demonstrated that its proprietary RZOLV water-based, non-cyanide leaching solution is highly effective at recovering gold from black sand – a heavy mineral sands concentrate that represents challenges and upside opportunities for placer gold miners.

The basic premise behind placer mining is that gold is heavier than almost every other mineral and metal in the ground. After two or three steps of washing away the lighter materials, the gravity recovery plants at placer mines produce gold and black-colored sand that is a concentrate of the heaviest materials contained within the placer gold deposit being mined.

While the black sand concentrates produced at placer mines typically still contain high-grade gold, the recovery of that gold is usually too labor-intensive or environmentally hazardous to be economically viable.

With gravity methods reaching their technological limits for recovering the gold, mercury was typically used to recover the remaining gold from black sands. While mercury, which adheres to gold to produce an amalgam, is highly effective, it is also extremely dangerous for human health and the environment. Likewise, the use of cyanide to dissolve gold is a toxic method not practical for placer gold mining operations.

Innovation Mining’s RZOLV may be the solution to overcoming the economic and environmental challenges to unlock the golden opportunities sitting in buckets and barrels of black sand concentrates at placer gold mines in Alaska and around the world.