Abstract Detail

Abstract

Artisanal gold mining and processing involves usage of large quantities of water,  during mining and traditional gravity separation of ore panning. In these rural areas, the main sources of water for these gold processing activities are  the natural occurring streams and rivers. Miners collect water with their head pans or pumps from these streams to wet their ore pits during digging, and also conduct panning of the excavated gold ore in any nearby flowing water. It is of great concern that these same water resources are used by the people in these rural communities for their daily activities including consumption. It is also of note that farm products by the locals  such as palmwine and palmoil that are sold in cities are essentially made using same flowing water supplies. The thrust of this research is to conduct material testing on water from atleast 5 rivers/streams in gold mining communities and compare the obtained water characteristics with known standards. 

Biography

Olaniyi Awe has Ph.D.  in Materials Engineering  from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria( 2023).  His thesis was on the extraction of gold from its ore using borax-based pyro-metallurgical method. He has both M.Eng (Mineral Processing Option, Metallurgical and Materials Engineering), and B.Eng ( Metallurgical and Materials Engineering ) from Federal University of Technology, Akure, Nigeria in good grade. The Author research interests include materials characterization, Mineral processing and Extractive Metallurgy. He has his research outputs presented in journals and academic conferences. The last was the paper -  Determination of Gold Recovery  Efficiency of Traditional Panning Method on Itagunmodi Sounthern Nigeria Alluvial Gold Ore Samples -  presented at 60th Nigerian Mining and Geosciences Annual International Conference held 16th – 21st February,2025.