The Philippines has some of the largest reserves of mineral resources making the mining industry a potential key economic driver for the country. However, current mining practices leave a lot to be desired.

There is a big clamor for responsible mining practices in the Philippines specifically under the leadership of DENR Secretary Gina Lopez. Even as the big mining companies attempt to uphold the proper standards and safety regulations related to the mining industry, the current practices being used are still very detrimental to the environment, producing lots of waste by-products—which are highly toxic and very unsafe.

With policy regulation and enforcement becoming tighter under the Duterte Administration, mining practices must shift towards becoming environment friendly.

For meeting the Philippine government’s policy and improving the working condition of Philippine mining industry, UWin nanotech hands with the Xin-Ye Industrial to launch environmental friendly gold and nickel stripper solutions: GP-860 and GP-350 in Philippines.

GP-860 gold stripper is a highly safe, environment friendly, and very efficient alternative to the usual gold leaching cyanide solution, which is currently being used in the Philippine mining industry. It is a US-patented, Taiwan-patented, and Japan-patented. GP-350 is a kind of nickel leaching solution.

Laboratory testing was made at the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB). Intertek Philippines did a second laboratory testing and analysis of the solutions. Tests from both the MGB and Intertek Philippines show that the retrieval rates for gold using GP-860 gold stripper is at 98.17% for 4 hours, and the cyanide process is less than 85% for 72 hours. While retrieval rates for nickel using GP-350 was at 71.96 % for 2 hours, and sulfuric acid was less than 50% for 8 hours.

Apart from being environment-friendly, the GP-860 has a faster processing time at 4-8 hours and higher retrieval rate of gold as compared to cyanide. Through this, mining companies would actually see a decrease in their operation costs and an increase in profits, without harming people and the environment.

In addition, the GP-350 can not only strip nickel, but also rare earth metals(Eu, Tm, Tb, Dy) and radioactive metals(Co, U).

Currently, the Xin Ye Industrial is collaborating with the MGB on improving mining process, and they anticipate being able to significantly improve the Philippines' mining industry and the country's natural ecology.