Technology Development

80+

pilot plants

40+

unique solutions in hydrometallurgy, energy, infrastructure

30

custom technologies now in development

Challenges

The past decade has seen an unprecedented rise in production across all industry sectors. This has been matched by exponential growth in numerous parts of the globe. Coupled with a variety of emerging problems—decreasing ore grades, increasing emissions, growing populations—many companies are rethinking and revamping their own activities to remain competitive. Yours may be one of them.

Your company isn't like anyone else's. You need a specialized approach to commercialization, founded on sound economic and financial evaluations. Expert technical knowledge is needed, too, to create relevant, high-value market solutions. Our broad experience in testing and scaling technologies, and our history of forming collaborative engagements with researchers, end users, government, and funding organizations, has given us a proven track record of successfully implementing new technologies around the globe.

Like never before, you need the right, best value proposition to offer your customers and stakeholders. One that will set you apart from your competitors. Let us help. We work with you, adding value all along the developmental pathway, the full-scale feasibility, and intellectual-property landscape. With us as your partner, you get an objective view of business strategy, financial projections, and a sound approach to risk management. In short, a better, more competitive and even more profitable business.

Solutions

Technical evaluation

When the right technologies are available off-the-shelf, we work in partnership with you, helping to evaluate, prioritize, select, and implement the best tool for your needs. We assist in every way we can, helping small clients or start-ups with technology evaluations, risk assessments, and value propositions before scaling up or raising capital.

Planning investments carefully

Just starting out? You need a partner you can trust to define project economics, like ROI, payback, and net present values. We establish collaborative relationships to leverage in-kind and financial investments too, helping technology developers and start-ups reach their milestones. In addition to navigating the IP landscape, we help ensure that technology options are evaluated for financial and legal feasibility.

Where off-the-shelf solutions are too costly or unavailable, we’ll work with you to create more economical ones through the various stages of development and readiness. You'll get de-risked and commercially viable technologies.

Pilot plant trials, bench scale, and commercial plants

We've designed and operated more than 80 pilot plants or small industrial systems. These generate information about how the system behaves. This can be used to design larger facilities, with less risk than constructing large process plants.

Start-ups, technology developers, and inventors get the help they need to assess risks and common pitfalls, all the way out to commercial scale, starting even before or during the pilot stage.

Industry- and client-specific solutions

More than 40 unique technology solutions are provided repeatedly to our clients. Autoclaves, furnaces, tubular alumina digestion reactors, and hydropower software can all drive positive results. Thirty new custom technologies are in development right now.

We also help create linkages between you and technology developers, using our specialized knowledge to integrate new solutions within existing facilities.

Commercialization management

We bridge the gap between you and developers, helping to commercialize new technologies. We conduct techno-economic studies, identifying the value proposition and driving technology through to implementation.

We assist with roadmapping, managing relationships with researchers, technology collaborators, vendors, and investors. We maintain the technology pipeline and provide technical expertise.

Benefits

More than six decades of successfully developing technologies, making them safer and the process more efficient
Intelligent, independent decisions about off-the-shelf technologies vs new designs
Practical knowledge about feasibility on a commercial scale, de-risking the commercialization process, identifying common oversights and problems that can result

Understanding intellectual property and the legal landscape
Broad industry knowledge and collaboration with investors, universities, governments, and research and technology institutes
Improved investment decision-making to deliver safe, productive, and sustainable technologies

Blogs

On the path to zero emissions: how the mining industry is working towards GHG-free surface mining

Michael Bobotis

In 2018, the International Council on Mining & Metals (ICMM) launched the Innovation for Cleaner Safer Vehicles (ICSV) initiative, which brings together twenty-seven of the world’s leading mining companies and nineteen original equipment manufacturers to accelerate innovation in the development of a new generation of mining vehicles and to improve existing vehicles.

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