Post: Can RZOLV Help Reduce Mercury Use in Artisanal Gold Mining?

Why the world’s biggest mercury problem may also be one of clean gold mining’s most important opportunities

Few problems in mining are as large, as visible, and as solvable as mercury in artisanal and small-scale gold mining. UNEP says artisanal and small-scale gold mining, or ASGM, accounts for about 37% of global mercury releases and produces roughly 12% to 15% of the world’s gold, with an estimated 10 to 15 million miners active in the sector. The Minamata Convention identifies ASGM as the largest source of mercury emissions and releases. That makes this more than a niche environmental issue. It is one of the biggest unresolved problems in global gold production.

Mercury persists for a reason. WHO notes that amalgamation remains common because it is cheap, quick, easy, and can be used by one person independently. For miners working in remote regions with limited access to capital, equipment, power, or formal processing plants, that simplicity matters. But WHO also warns that mercury vapour around amalgam-burning sites can be alarmingly high and almost always exceeds its public-exposure guideline of 1.0 µg/m³, while UNEP says mercury from ASGM ultimately contaminates soil, waterways, and food chains. In plain language, mercury survives because it is practical, even though the health and environmental price is severe.

That distinction is important, because it explains why the sector has been so difficult to change. The problem is not that the world lacks mercury-free ideas. The U.S. EPA says it is possible to recover gold safely and economically without mercury, and that mercury-free techniques can be safer for miners and communities while sometimes helping miners market their gold at better prices. EPA also notes that concentration methods can eliminate or greatly reduce the need for mercury, while UNEP has published a dedicated illustrated guide to mercury-free ASGM practices under the Minamata framework. The toolbox exists.

The harder truth is that adoption has lagged. A 2023 review found that mercury-elimination programs have been running since the 1980s and 1990s and that there is now a growing inventory of mercury-free technologies, yet adoption in ASGM remains low. That is why mercury in artisanal mining is not just a chemistry problem. It is a systems problem involving informal status, lack of finance, weak access to equipment, poor processing design, limited training, and the reality that miners often optimize first for speed and liquidity, not for ideal environmental performance.

Formalization sits at the center of that challenge. UNEP’s planetGOLD program has been explicit that the informal status of many mining communities makes it difficult to phase out mercury, while recent planetGOLD country work has emphasized legal recognition, institutional support, and access to finance as prerequisites for broader adoption of mercury-free technologies. The World Gold Council makes a related point: most ASGM takes place outside legal frameworks, and responsibly managed processing plants can improve recovery, transparency, and traceability, but only if challenges around scale, infrastructure, and regulation are addressed. In other words, the mercury problem is bound up with how gold is bought, processed, and sold.

That is also why many mercury-free interventions only go part of the way. Gravity concentration, for example, can dramatically reduce mercury use, but it does not always solve the final recovery problem by itself. One recent review concluded that gravity concentration is not the final solution for eliminating mercury in artisanal gold mining, even though it can drastically reduce mercury releases. The practical gap often comes after concentration: once miners have a gold-rich gravity concentrate, what replaces the old mercury-amalgamation step in a way that is still simple, accessible, and economically compelling?

That is where RZOLV becomes interesting. On its technology and investor pages, RZOLV says it offers artisanal miners a mercury-free, easy-to-use solution intended to improve safety and metal yield, and it also says the chemistry performs well on gravity concentrates, with fast leach kinetics, low reagent consumption, and high recoveries. That suggests a plausible deployment model for ASM: not necessarily replacing every part of a miner’s workflow, but potentially replacing the mercury finishing step after gravity concentration has already captured the heavy fraction. That is an inference, but it is a commercially meaningful one because it targets the part of the workflow where mercury is most entrenched.

There is a second possible model as well: regional or community-scale processing plants. The World Gold Council’s recent work argues that responsibly managed gold processing plants can raise recovery, improve incomes, strengthen transparency, and support formalization in ASGM value chains. That matters because many artisanal miners may never want, or be able, to operate sophisticated chemistry on their own sites. But they may be willing to sell concentrate into a trusted local plant if it is safer, transparent, and pays better. In that context, a mercury-free reagent platform such as RZOLV could be relevant not only as a field tool, but as a technology within a more formalized local processing ecosystem.

The market side of the story matters just as much as the chemistry. EPA notes that mercury-free methods may help miners market gold at higher prices, while Fairmined describes its certification as a route for artisanal and small-scale mining organizations to access responsible markets under recognized standards. Fairmined also frames certification and responsible supply chains as a way for miners to participate in the global mineral market with a cleaner story and stronger governance. That means the upside of mercury-free processing is not limited to health and environmental benefit. It may also include better market access, better pricing, and a path into legal supply chains that reward responsibility instead of opacity.

Still, the honest version of this story is not that mercury-free chemistry alone will fix ASGM. It will not. The World Gold Council has repeatedly pointed to deeper structural challenges in artisanal mining, including informality, weak accountability, poor enforcement, and, in some regions, criminal infiltration and human-rights abuse. Mercury-free processing also does not eliminate the need for training, water management, tailings handling, cooperative structures, finance, and trusted buyers. Any serious rollout of RZOLV into ASM would have to live inside that reality. The chemistry has to work, but the system around it has to work too.

That is why the opportunity is so important. The Minamata framework and UNEP’s ASGM work make clear that the world is under pressure to reduce, and where feasible eliminate, mercury in artisanal gold mining. But miners will not abandon mercury simply because they are told to. They will abandon it when something else is safer, simple enough to use, strong enough on recovery, and credible enough to support a better livelihood. If RZOLV can demonstrate that combination in real artisanal settings, then ASM would not be a side application. It could become one of the company’s most globally relevant use cases — not just because it addresses gold recovery, but because it addresses one of mining’s most visible public-health and environmental failures.

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Disclosure and Cautionary Note

This article is provided for general informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell securities. References to third-party organizations, standards, and studies are included solely as background context. Statements regarding the possible applicability of RZOLV technology to artisanal and small-scale gold mining are forward-looking in nature and should not be interpreted as a representation that the technology has been commercially proven across ASGM settings or that it will necessarily replace mercury in any particular jurisdiction, community, or operating environment. Actual outcomes will depend on ore characteristics, processing setup, training, economics, local regulation, formalization pathways, and other risks and uncertainties.