Scientists create 'super soldier' technology for mining industry: top companies interested in Sudbury firm's bio-intelligent organisms.

• Author: Pickard, Arron
• Position: MINING

While Bio-Mine, a Sudbury bio-technology company, wasn't chosen to haggle for the $l-million grand prize in the #DisruptMining competition at the Professional Developers Association of Canada conference on March 5, the company's founders could still walk away with as much as $100,000.

Co-founder and CEO Kurtis Vanwellegham said he will be meeting with judges soon to make a deal for that money.

Best-case scenario, Vanwallegham walks away with $100,000. Worst-case scenario, he walks away with nothing for his company's technology which uses bio-intelligent organisms that can target metal recovery and remediation efforts in the mining industry.

DisruptMining is a global competition sponsored by Integra Gold Corp. and Goldcorp Inc., and is designed to showcase individuals, groups and companies that are using exponential technology and disruptive concepts to tackle the vast challenges faced by the mining industry.

"We got into the deal room, that's the big thing," he said.

Now it's a typical negotiation with someone who wants to invest, he said. They'll say what they want for their investment, and Vanwellegham will say yes or no.

"If we're not willing to give away shares, and they only want shares, then it could very well end right there," he said.

North Bay's Cementation Canada was chosen by the judges as a co-winner of the $1-million grand prize, as well as the People's Choice Award as the audience favourite. Winnings for Cementation totalled $650,000.

The mine building outfit successfully pitched its injection hoisting technology which uses a combination of existing and proven crushing, pumping and slurry technologies.

Cementation has developed a proof of concept model for process injection hoisting that would eliminate the need for mine shaft production hoisting or trucking, by transporting ore to the surface using a pump driven pipeline loop.

Vanwallegham said his company is about to cross the threshold from static bio mining into dynamic bio mining.

"Up to this point, bio mining has been saturated with 30 or 40 different bacteria species of what I call 'first generation' or static," he said. "They are very single-minded organisms. They eat only one type of rock and perform one function in very specific environments. The temperature, the pH levels, the carbon dioxide and oxygen levels have to be perfect. If they are not, the organism dies."

The company has developed what Vanwallegham calls the "super soldier" of bio mining. It's a suite of...