An official website of the United States government.

This is not the current EPA website. To navigate to the current EPA website, please go to www.epa.gov. This website is historical material reflecting the EPA website as it existed on January 19, 2021. This website is no longer updated and links to external websites and some internal pages may not work. More information »

International Cooperation

Manual for the Construction of a Mercury Capture System for Use in Gold Shops

To reduce airborne mercury emissions from gold shops, EPA and the Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) have partnered to design a low cost, easily constructed technology called the Gold Shop Mercury Capture System (MCS). The MCS was piloted and tested in Amazonian gold producing regions in Brazil and Peru.

On this page, you can download a manual in English for the construction of a mercury capture system for use in gold shops.  The manual includes detailed information for constructing a device to capture mercury aerosol particles emitted from gold shops that process gold dore’, a gold-mercury amalgam. (Following the construction guidelines in this manual, 80% or more of the mercury emitted will be captured.)

You may need a PDF reader to view some of the files on this page. See EPA’s About PDF page to learn more.