Sustainable Mercury-Free Botanical Gold Recovery
Manipueira, proven to sustainably recover 2 - 3 times more gold from ore and from toxic tailings wastes faster under properly controlled conditions, ends the toxic relationship between mercury, gold, and artisanal miners.
Manipueira Gold Recovery Technology
In 2021, Manipueira Gold Recovery Technology, Inc., (f.k.a. Alchemy Mining Group, Inc.) was incorporated in the Province of British Columbia, Canada. The company pioneered a four-stage ESG-aligned plant-based gold leaching system Action Plan designed as an alternative to mercury - a potent neurotoxin and synthetic cyanide salts used by artisanal miners to recover gold ore and tailings wastes.
Derived from the cyanogenic bitter cassava plant (Manihot esculenta Crantz), Manipueira (a.k.a. cassava wastewater), is a toxic agricultural liquid waste by-product containing aqueous-free cyanide (CN-) @ a pH 5.5.
The cyanide is produced by an internal chemical reaction as a defense mechanism triggered only when the integrity of the plant cellular structure is compromised for example; by predators or flour manufactures who crush the plant.
The plant does not contain cyanide (CN-).
Manipueira advances safe, sustainable gold recovery, reduces neurotoxic exposure, and promotes circular-economy practices.
In 2025, the company published the Action Plan detailing the 4-stage transformational strategy accompanied with the schematices in a flow chart detaining a re-purposed 50-tonne-per-day mercury-free Manipueira Precious Metals Leaching Center thereby establishing a scalable, circular-economy model for environmentally responsible and health-conscious gold production.
With growing global demand for responsible mining solutions, we believe Manipueira represents a significant investment opportunity with the potential for financial returns, mitigating health threats, and positive environmental impact.
Manipueira, when used as a lixiviant (leaching agent), is documented to sustainably recover greater than 99.3% of gold from ore concentrates and 99.6% from mercury-contaminated tailings in just two hours (Marcello M. Veiga & Pariya Torkaman, 2021). View YouTube video: https://youtu.be/e89k2xbWcvU?si=R3r-wUxmz4jNmSKo
By comparison, mercury is scientifically documented to only recover up to 30% of the ore gold with the rest being lost to tailings wastes (Marcello M. Veiga and Omotayo Fadina, 2020; Marcello M. Veiga et, 2014).
In 2021, the global bitter cassava plant harvesting was estimated at 308 million tonnes (Blue Sense, 2023). According to P. Torkaman et al., 2021, 30 - 40% of the plants total weight representing ~ 120 million tonnes of toxic agricultural cassava waste-water is recklessly discarded to the environment annually by flour manufacturers.
An estimated 800 million people in 80 countries including 500 million in Africa depend on the root as their main staple (Fran Robson et al., 2023).
Manipueira, which stinks when fermented, attracts insects, creates health threats, causes biodiversity destruction, contaminates the soil, drinking water, irrigation water contaminating the crops, and polluting the rivers.
“The symbiosis of artisanal ore processors and flour makers is a win-win situation to reduce environmental pollution, health threats, and mitigating an unintended consequence of harvesting the bitter cassava plant”
(P. Torkaman et al., 2021).
