Business
Strategic Metals Ltd. Completes the Sale of Its SMARTs Technology
VANCOUVER, BC--(Marketwired - September 27, 2016) - Strategic Metals Ltd. (TSX VENTURE: SMD) ("Strategic") announces that it has completed the sale of its Seque
About this update from Strategic Metals Ltd.
[{"type":"text","content":"VANCOUVER, BC--(Marketwired - September 27, 2016) - Strategic Metals Ltd. (TSX VENTURE: SMD) (\"Strategic\") announces that it has completed the sale of its Sequestration, Mitigation and Remediation Technology (\"SMARTs\") to its wholly-owned subsidiary, Terra CO2 Technologies Ltd. (\"Terra CO2\"), as disclosed in Strategic's Management's Discussion and Analysis dated August 29, 2016 and as filed on SEDAR on that date. Since 2013, Strategic has been working on a carbon dioxide (CO2) conversion and mine waste remediation research project. Work to date has been carried out at the University of British Columbia (\"UBC\") and has been under the direction of Dr. Lee Groat, a faculty member at UBC and a Director of Strategic. To date, the process has been in laboratory scale development and is currently best described as being a bench test stage. A limited capability laboratory prototype has successfully demonstrated concept viability. A more advanced prototype has recently been assembled, and is providing data needed to allow the SMARTs process to be integrated into a continuous flow operational unit. The goal of SMARTs is twofold: (i) to reduce the levels of heavy metal contamination and mine rock acid drainage present in groundwater at some producing and past producing metal mining operations; and (ii) to permanently remove CO2 discharged from industrial operations such as hydrocarbon fueled electrical generation plants, large scale heating units or cement furnaces. In brief, SMARTs operates by mixing pyrite (FeS2) from mine tailings or concentrates with an aqueous brine which is then passed through an electrolytic cell to force the separation of the iron and sulphur in the pyrite. The iron is then reacted with CO2 from flue gases and an iron carbonate mineral called siderite (FeCO3) is produced. Siderite is chemically stable under atmospheric conditions and can be stored as non-reactive treated tailings or used as back fill material in mining operations. The sulphur separated from the iron under the SMARTs process is used to produce sulphuric acid, which is potentially a marketable commercial product. Patent protection for the initial technology concept has been obtained in both the United States and Canada and is pending in other jurisdictions including Australia, Europe and Japan. The patent is entitled \"Processing of Sulphate ...