What happens when you rethink not just how we mine, but the entire pathway from mineralization to metal?
Read the entire press release here.
Novamera is pleased to announce a new strategic collaboration with RZOLV Technologies to evaluate the integration of Surgical Mining™ with RZOLV’s modular, non-cyanide metal recovery technology. The goal is straightforward: explore whether we can create a faster, more flexible mine-to-metal pathway for mineral deposits that don’t fit the traditional mine-and-mill model, quickly and sustainably.
For decades, the economics of mining have largely favoured scale. Large deposits justify large mines. Large mines feed large processing facilities. And the significant capital required to build that infrastructure means projects generally need substantial resources, long mine lives and years of development before the first metal is produced.That model works extremely well for certain deposits.
But it also means that many smaller, high-grade, narrow-vein, brownfield and complex mineral opportunities can be difficult to advance—not necessarily because they lack valuable mineralization, but because they don’t fit the economics or infrastructure requirements of conventional mining. At Novamera, we believe there needs to be another option.
Target the ore. Leave the waste.
Surgical Mining™ is being developed around a fundamentally different principle: selectively access the mineralization you want while leaving significantly more waste in the ground.
Using high-resolution subsurface intelligence, precision drilling and advanced guidance technologies, Surgical Mining is designed to identify, navigate to and selectively extract mineralized material with significantly less waste movement and surface disturbance than conventional approaches.
But selective extraction raises an important downstream question:
If we can produce smaller volumes of higher-grade, lower-dilution material, can we rethink how that material is processed too?
Connecting targeted mining with modular processing
RZOLV is developing a proprietary water-based hydrometallurgical technology capable of dissolving and recovering precious and critical metals without the use of cyanide during the leaching stage. Together, Novamera and RZOLV will evaluate whether targeted extraction and modular mineral processing can be integrated into a more direct pathway:
Understand the orebody → Target the mineralization → Selectively extract → Process through modular infrastructure → Recover metal
Rather than automatically designing a large mine around a centralized processing facility, the opportunity is to explore a system where the extraction and processing solution is designed around the characteristics of the deposit itself. If successfully validated, this could create new development options for narrow-vein, high-grade, brownfield and other mineral deposits that can be challenging to advance through conventional methods.
Why this matters now
The demand for minerals is changing rapidly.Critical mineral supply chains, defence requirements, electrification, advanced manufacturing and new technologies are increasing the need for secure and reliable sources of metal. Yet bringing a conventional mine into production can take many years.
We believe part of the solution is not simply finding more mineral resources. It is developing new ways to convert known mineralization into usable metal.
That means creating mining systems that can be smaller, faster and more flexible—and processing technologies capable of working alongside them. The Novamera–RZOLV collaboration is an opportunity to explore what that future could look like. As Novamera CRO Theresa Quick noted in announcing the partnership:
“Mining has traditionally been designed around scale — large mines feeding large, centralized processing infrastructure. Surgical Mining™ is creating another option: selectively access the mineralization you want while leaving significantly more waste behind.”
Connecting that capability with modular downstream recovery could take the concept one step further: from Surgical Mining to a more complete mine-to-metal pathway.
What comes next
Under the collaboration, Novamera and RZOLV will develop a joint technical evaluation framework to assess opportunities for integration.This includes evaluating suitable deposits, metallurgical testwork, modular processing configurations, metal recovery, water recycling and residue characteristics.The work will be stage-gated, allowing both teams to assess the technical, environmental and economic potential of the combined approach before moving toward larger-scale validation.
It is still early, and the integration needs to be proven. But that is exactly why partnerships like this matter. Transforming mineral supply will require more than improving individual pieces of the traditional mining process. It will require companies to work across the value chain and rethink how deposits move from resource, to extraction, to usable metal.That is the opportunity Novamera and RZOLV are setting out to explore.
Target the ore. Leave the waste. And build a faster path from mine to metal.
What happens when you rethink not just how we mine, but the entire pathway from mineralization to
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