DRDGold, a South Africa-based gold producer, has announced that its metallurgical plant, Ergo Mining Proprietary, has struck a five-year research and support agreement with the University of Witswatersrand (Wits University) to accelerate research into enhancing gold extraction techniques.

The company said the research would allow for more effective optimisation and improve the probability of increased gold recovery and environmentally friendly treatment technologies for five years.

Specifically, the technological focus areas will comprise four interrelated and interdependent categories: alternative leaching, fluidisation and recovery, environmental treatment, and chemical measurements and modelling.

Henry Gouws, managing director of Ergo, said the company was "committed to engaging" with educational institutions on the issue of technological research and development.

"We look forward to working with the Gold Research Group within the School of Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering at Wits University as we seek to optimise and improve gold recovery as well as identify and evaluate environmentally friendly treatment technologies," Gouws said.

Herman Potgieter, professor at Wits University and manager of the programme, said the research will "assist Ergo in developing new measurement techniques to quantify small amounts of gold in the leached solutions reliably."