CyanoGuard is a start-up that works on cyanide monitoring and detection in various industries, including gold mining, food safety and medical applications. In the mining industry, it aims to minimise cyanide consumption and operational costs while improving precious metal recoveries for gold mines.
The company stated that it can help gold mines to reduce their cyanide consumption by 15% while increasing gold recovery rates by 2%. It has recently expanded its available cyanide concentration ranges and now covers 0.1-4,000ppm of free cyanide.
Its products include CyanoKit, a single-use, non-hazardous test cartridge that changes colour based on cyanide concentration in a sample; the CyanoSmart digital handheld device that transmits the results to a cloud platform in real time; and the Cyano.iO AI-based cloud platform. The CyanoSmart analyser recently received CE Mark Certification.
The company has a pilot programme for operating gold mines that use a cyanide-based leaching process with cyanide concentrations up to 4000ppm, and also have mobile network coverage on site.
Andres Pereira, senior engineer at Nalco Water, a subsidiary of Ecolab, has been overseeing the implementation and daily usage of the CyanoGuard cyanide monitoring solution at a gold mine in Colombia.
He said: "The protocol, the procedure, and the equipment are everything we expected. We're so happy with CyanoGuard's technology since it'll make our lives easier. It also minimises our exposure to chemicals which is also very valuable to us."
CyanoGuard has other active or upcoming pilots in gold-producing countries like Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and Peru.
Margarita Zvezda, head of sales at CyanoGuard, commented: "We are very excited to learn that senior industry experts like Andres recognise the substantial value our solutions add to their application in gold mining. Our goal is to support more miners in the Americas in their efforts to optimise production processes, minimise costs and carry out responsible business practices.
"We're pleased to see that gold miners in the region are enthusiastic about introducing innovative technologies to improve their performance. We believe that this factor will be largely decisive in determining the future competitive positions of players in the gold market."
CyanoGuard was a finalist in the 2020 Mining Magazine awards.
