The Elements of Innovation Discovered
The Elements of Innovation Discovered
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From mapping prospective ground for mineral exploration to guiding autonomous ore hauling trucks, lidar has emerged as an invaluable tool to the global mining sector. For any technology to be adopted by mining, however, it must be rugged enough to stand up to the rigors of an industry that earns its keep by drilling, blasting, hauling, and crushing billions of tons of rock each year to recover the valuable minerals and metals locked up inside. Silicon Valley-based Quanergy...
ZEN Graphene Solutions Ltd. and Trebor Rx Corp. have submitted additional information requested by Health Canada in regard to a recent precautionary recall of face masks treated with graphene. Earlier this month, Health Canada issued an advisory warning that inhaling graphene particles from treated face masks may pose health risks. Trebor is a Canada-based company that is producing masks treated with an antimicrobial graphene compound developed by ZEN that has been proven in...
Critical materials experts from the University of Birmingham are urging the United Kingdom to take quick action to ensure Britain has a stable supply of technology-critical metals essential for its transition to clean energy. "Our ability to deliver on our international commitments will doubtless be enabled or constrained by our access to the technology-critical metals that underpin the clean energy transition," said Sir John Beddington, chief scientific adviser to the UK...
Typically thought of as a glimmery precious metal used to make coins, bullion, jewelry, and other shiny objects, silver's true value lies in more industrious properties that make it invaluable to high-tech applications such as solar panels, electric vehicles, and 5G networks. "Silver demand has evolved from a monetary ornamental use, to photographic, to digital, and now to energy," Hecla Mining Company President and CEO Phillips Baker, Jr. said during a March 31 keynote...
ZEN Graphene Solutions Ltd. said it supports Health Canada's recent precautionary recall of face masks that contain graphene, a 2D material that has been proven highly effective at killing viruses, bacteria, and fungi responsible for a broad range of diseases. Health Canada recently issued an advisory warning that inhaling graphene particles from treated face masks may pose health risks. "Until the department completes a thorough scientific assessment and has established the s...
Taking another step toward contributing lithium to a battery metals hub in Ontario, Avalon Advanced Materials Inc. has entered into a letter of intent with Fort William First Nation to collaborate on the development of a lithium battery materials refinery located on industrial lands in Thunder Bay, Ontario. To be built on Fort William First Nation lands, this facility would be designed to upgrade concentrates from Avalon's Separation Rapids lithium project about 280 miles...
A new round of analysis and testing has further confirmed amazingly high grades of gallium associated with the high-grade rare earth zones at Appia Energy Corp.'s Alces Lake property in northern Saskatchewan. An electron microprobe study conducted by the Saskatchewan Research Council successfully demonstrated that the rare earths-enriched monazite mineral from two separate zones and trends at Alces Lake was also enriched with gallium. Following up on the success of this...
In another step toward its overarching goal to deliver battery grade cobalt into the North American electric vehicles market, First Cobalt Corp. has signed a flexible, long-term, offtake agreement with Stratton Metal Resources Ltd. for the sale of future cobalt sulfate production from the First Cobalt refinery in Ontario, Canada. "Stratton Metals are among the most knowledgeable cobalt traders in the world, with a network of relationships in every major market," said First...
Reaching another major milestone on its path to being Canada's first rare earths producer, Vital Metals Ltd. has begun mining at its Nechalacho REE project in Northwest Territories. A 110-kilometer- (68 miles) long, 1.1-meter-thick ice road running across the north side of Great Slave Lake from Dettah, Northwest Territories near Yellowknife was opened for deliveries to the mine site on March 20. Crushing plant, mining equipment, fuel, and other equipment and supplies needed...
In a move to secure the lithium needed to power its e-mobility aspirations, BMW Group has entered into a deal with Livent Corp. to supply roughly US$335 million (285 million euros) worth of this vital battery metal beginning in 2022. BMW Group plans to have about a dozen fully electric models on showroom floors and expects that battery EVs will make up more than half of its total sales by 2030. As a result, the German luxury automaker expects to deliver roughly 10 million EVs...
Laboratory tests indicate that a small dose of a graphene compound developed by ZEN Graphene Solutions Ltd. is highly effective in fighting antimicrobial-resistant bacteria, including multidrug-resistant variants like methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). Previous testing carried out by Dr. Tony Mazzulli, microbiologist-in-chief and infectious disease specialist at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto and professor in two medicine and pathobiology departments at the...
Best known for delivering technological solutions to the oil and gas sectors for more than 100 years, Schlumberger has formed Schlumberger New Energy, a new division focused on low-carbon and carbon-neutral energy technologies. One of Schlumberger New Energy's first projects in the United States is the development of a pilot plant to extract lithium from brine in Nevada. Unlike the evaporation process traditionally used to extract lithium from brines in South America, the...
Syrah Resources Ltd. has installed the furnace at its Vidalia plant in Louisiana, the final component needed to begin upgrading graphite mined at its Balama operation in Mozambique into the active anode material for lithium-ion batteries in the United States. The anodes in lithium-ion batteries are packed full of graphite that has been rolled into potato-shaped spheres and coated in a hard carbon shell that must be thermally treated. With the installation of the furnace at...
American Manganese Inc. has entered into a preliminary agreement to develop a lithium-ion battery cathode recycling facility alongside a battery gigafactory being developed in Italy by Italvolt. Founded and led by Lars Carlstrom, a pioneer industrialist in the automotive sector with more than 30 years of experience, Italvolt is advancing the development of a battery factory in Scarmagno, a northern Italian town about 65 miles west of Milan. The gigafactory is to be built at...
Canada thinks about critical minerals differently than the United States and European Union. While its Western counterparts have put together shopping lists of the critical raw materials that are in high demand by technologies important to their economic and security interests, but supplies may not be readily available, Canada's newly released list is more akin to a catalog of 31 critical minerals and metals it has in stock to meet the global needs of a world transitioning to...
As part of a strategy to significantly lower the cost, improve the performance, and minimize the environmental footprint of batteries going into its expanding line-up of electric vehicles in Europe, Volkswagen Group has placed a US$14 billion order with Sweden-based Northvolt. This massive deal between the European e-mobility partners announced on the eve of Volkswagen Power Day, a March 15 event that laid out the German automaker's roadmap to making the electric car...
American Manganese Inc. has awarded Kemetco Research Inc., a leading metallurgical laboratory based in British Columbia, C$2.7 million to develop a 500-kilogram-per-day demonstration recycling plant and the design for a five-metric-ton-per-day commercial recycling plant that utilizes American Manganese's patented RecycLiCo process. Developed under a partnership with Kemetco, RecycLiCo is a process to recover cobalt, lithium, nickel, manganese, and aluminum from the cathodes...
Coating high-touch public transit surfaces with a layer of copper is a highly effective way to kill bacteria on busses, subways, trains, and other metropolitan transport, according to the results from a five-week pilot carried out on TransLink busses and SkyTrain cars in Vancouver, British Columbia. Funded by Teck Resources Ltd., a Vancouver-based mining company, the copper-surface pilot is a first of its kind in North America. Based on sample-testing, the trial concludes...
The future of automated underground mining – where drones self-navigate through a labyrinth of underground mine workings and send back high-accuracy 3D data that can be used to guide autonomous mining equipment – is closer than you think. Sandvik Mining and Rock Solutions (formerly Sandvik Mining and Rock Technologies) and Exyn Technologies Inc. offered Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) convention attendees a glimpse of the mining autonomy horizon in a vide...
With solar panel production driving up the demand for tellurium, Rio Tinto plans to recover roughly 20 metric tons of this critical mineral per year from its Kennecott copper mine near Salt Lake City, Utah. One of the rarest stable elements on the periodic table, tellurium is almost always recovered as a byproduct of refining other metals it is associated with. "Most rocks contain an average of about 3 parts per billion tellurium, making it rarer than the rare earth elements...
The American clean energy revolution envisioned by the Biden administration is going to require a massive supply chain upgrade – from the mines feeding rare earths, battery metals and other materials into the front end, to the manufacturers that will utilize these mined materials to build the electric vehicles and renewable energy infrastructure needed for a low-carbon future. In a move that demonstrates the newly elected administration's hopes that a transition to l...
Understanding that diverse and reliable supplies of critical minerals and metals are vital to the renewable energy, electric vehicles, and high-tech sectors, the European Union has set in motion a plan for more resilient supplies of these raw materials that will ensure Europe's ambition for a green and digital future. "We import lithium for electric cars, platinum to produce clean hydrogen, silicon metal for solar panels. 98% of the rare earth elements we need come from a sing...
When a global automaker changes a name that has been a symbol emblazoned upon its American automobiles for more than 65 years in favor of a moniker emblematic of its electric vehicle future, there is no doubt that global transportation is at an e-mobility crossroads. Such a turning point was reached on March 30, when Volkswagen Group unveiled the official change of its U.S. brand name from Volkswagen of America to Voltswagen of America. “We might be changing out our K for a T...
In its push to get "everybody in" on its transition to electric vehicles, General Motors is working closely with SolidEnergy Systems to accelerate the development of a next-generation Ultium battery to power safer, more affordable, and longer-range GM EVs. This coming iteration of the Ultium battery is expected to be lithium-metal, which promises to have twice the energy density, charge faster, and last longer than the state-of-the-art lithium-ion batteries currently powering...
A 12-kilogram (26.5 pounds) sample of rare earth carbonate from Vital Metals Ltd.'s Nechalacho project in Canada's Northwest Territories takes the Australian mining company one step closer to its goal of commercially producing REEs this year. "Production of our bulk sample for REEtec is another important step towards reaching full production at Nechalacho," said Vital Metals Managing Director Geoff Atkins. Produced from a bulk sampling program at Nechalacho, this first bag of...
