A Series of Name Changes and Ownership
Recently, paperwork was submitted for a company operating a pilot plant extracting precious metals from printed circuit boards to become publicly traded.
Modern Mining Technology Corporation, located in British Columbia, has taken the next step in its expansion of hydrometallurgical recycling processes by submitting a statement to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
The firm employs a pre-concentration plant to extract plastics from PCB scrap, then produces a metallic sand concentrate (MSC). Afterwards, an aqueous purification plant extracts and produces separated gold, silver, copper, platinum, and palladium from the MSC.
Once referred to as Evotus, the company changed its name in October of 2020 to Urban Mining International. Then, almost a year later in December of 2021, it was changed once more to become Modem Mining Technology Corp.
“Modern Mining’s process, being aqueous-based, is largely carbon neutral, safer for both workers and for the environment, and allows for the recovery of a broader range of metals as separation and recovery is driven by physical methods and simple reagent addition, not complex pyrometallurgy,” according to the company.
In 2020, Derek Ramsell, founder, and CEO of Evotus, made the decision to part with his 68 percent ownership. After being featured in a March 2019 edition of E-Scrap News, he transferred control of the company to its minority owners. Currently, Ramsell is the CEO of Battery Metals Refining LLC, a startup focused on extracting metals from lithium-ion batteries.
The Recovery Process
With its corporate office stationed in Vancouver, B.C., Modern Mining has recently established a 10,000 square foot pilot and demonstration plant in Greenville, N.C. Leading the company is Kuljit (Jeet) Basi, who brings years of experience from various mining corporations into his role as President and CEO.
Up to this point, the corporation revealed in its prospectus that approximately 12,000 pounds of PCB scrap have been gathered for initiating the new facility. The pre-concentration plant consists of three components: shredding, milling and a water-based separation procedure. This system is used to create MSC, which is then further refined.
Beginning in January, the firm also implemented an e-scrap dismantling station and a depopulation station as part of its effort to streamline processing. Through these stations, the company can remove circuit boards from the feedstock before sending the material into the shredder.
Last fall, the pre-concentration plant processed 50 pounds of milled feedstock. This yielded twenty pounds of MSC, which was tested in December to measure its metal content. The tests showed that copper could be extracted with a success rate between 85 and 98 percent. Additionally, gold and silver recovery was estimated to exceed 90 percent.
To date, over 3,300 pounds of processed PCB feedstock have been tested by Modern Mining’s pre-concentration plant. The separation unit has produced 1,100 pounds of MSC that can potentially be sold.
The firm also shipped out a 650-pound sample from the 1,100 pounds of MSC to a potential third-party purchaser for inspection. Upon analysis, it was discovered that the selection contained 5 ounces in gold, 14 ounces in silver and 450 pounds in copper, as seen in the July 25th prospectus.
2 Million Shares to be Released
An announcement from Modern Mining has revealed its plans to list the company’s shares on the New York Stock Exchange. Though, should the NYSE be unwilling to accept the firm as part of its listing, the company won’t go ahead with the initial offering.
At a cost of around $5.00 per share, Modern Mining plans to release 2 million shares with an anticipation of generating approximately $8.57 million following deductions for expenses, commissions and other discounts related to its initial public offering.
“Modern Mining intends to use the net proceeds from the offering for research and development expenses, marketing expenditures, capital expenditures, working capital, and general corporate purposes,” the release stated.
The prospectus states that the company intends to construct pre-concentration factories with the capacity to process 8,000 metric tons of e-scrap each year. In addition, four dedicated aqueous purification plants would be built to process the feedstock from these facilities.
“In the long-term, we intend to secure a larger facility in the Raleigh or Greenville area of North Carolina to serve as our commercial-scale production facility although such future facility has yet to be identified as our current pilot plant facility still has significant capacity that we foresee being adequate in the short-term,” the prospectus notes.
