The use of mercury in artisanal and small scale gold mining in Ghana poses serious environmental and health risks. The purpose of this project is twofold; to improve safety by prototyping a device to reduce mercury exposure, and to document our novel co-design approach. We prototyped three iterations of retorts, blending our technical expertise with miners’ local expertise. By allowing miners to lead the stages of design and grounding our partnership in mutual respect and sharing of ideas, our partners recognized their own capacity to shape their own outcomes. Future efforts can include further technical and field testing to improve device function and manufacturability and an implementation scheme to expand access to these devices.

• This report represents the work of one or more WPI undergraduate students submitted to the faculty as evidence of completion of a degree requirement. WPI routinely publishes these reports on its website without editorial or peer review.

Creator

• Cunniff, Madison Elizabeth
• Reynoso, Rosa R.
• Azevedo, Isabel Mariana
• Harting, Van William
• Tegegne, Rediet Merra

Publisher

• Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Identifier

• E-project-032520-225312

Award

• Provost's MQP Award

Advisor

• Krueger, Robert
• Rao, Pratap M.

Year

• 2020

Sponsor

• Okeyene's Environment Foundation

Date created

• 2020-03-25

Resource type

• Major Qualifying Project

Major

• Chemical Engineering
• Mechanical Engineering

Rights statement

• In Copyright

最新修改

• 2023-01-19