VANCOUVER – A new chemical process is being developed and refined in British Columbia to allow the mining industry to extract critical minerals with minimal environmental impact.
Vancouver-based pH7 Technologies has created a proprietary closed-loop process using advanced chemistry to extract and refine critical metals, a B.C. government release said. The process also enables efficient metal extraction from low-grade resources or difficult substrates in a cost-effective way. The metal alloys, including platinum group metals, copper, and tin, produced by pH7 are then refined by industrial customers.
“With near net-zero environmental impact in the extraction of critical metals and minerals, pH7 is demonstrating the kind of innovative thinking that can transform mining around the world,” said B.C. Minister of Energy, Mines and Low-Carbon Innovation Josie Osborne in a statement.
“We at pH7 are seeing a real opportunity to advance in the path to net-zero and are honoured to be receiving the support of the Province’s ICE Fund as we explore continued growth and commercialization of our technology. The clean, green future we envision requires more critical metals than we have access to currently. Through innovation and collaboration, we look forward to bringing our clean-tech solution to help scale the extraction of metals and make existing processes much more sustainable and cost-effective,” added pH7 Technologies founder and CEO Mohammad Doostmohammadi.
PH7 will conduct a pilot project with $850,000 from the province’s ICE Fund to process 5,000 kilograms per day of raw materials into approximately 2,500 kilograms of extracted platinum group metals per year.
The ICE Fund was established in 2007 to support B.C.’s clean-energy sector and supports the production of clean, renewable energy technologies, reducing costs and helping to preserve the environment by supporting projects that lower the consumption of fossil fuels, the release said.
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