Dust poses significant environmental and safety issues in mining operations. Canada-based company NTI Nanotechnology Corp claims to have developed a solution to dust problems at Port Hedlund iron ore mine in Western Australia., where levels of dust poses a major proble. Dust levels in Port Hedland are so dangerous the West Australian Government had been advised to ban new housing, aged care facilities and childcare centres in the town’s West End.
The company will launch a dust control trial at Port Hedlund within months, utilizing iron nanoparticles. According to the company, the facility has been very receptive to their ideas.
“I can definitely see that there is a significant dust issue. Walking around the mining sites is perhaps not very fair because obviously there is a lot of dust in those operations,” said NTI Nanotechnology Corp CEO Andre Voskuil “I have to admit that the sheer size of the problem in Port Hedland is in a league of its own,” he said.
“We have tackled with this technology sizeable mining sites and mining roads and mining communities mainly in South America, but never of this magnitude to be quite honest with you. I think if we look at the size and quantity [of dust]that I’ve been told exists in Port Hedland and neighbouring communities, I think we are going to talk in the hundreds of millions of dollars to have an environmentally viable solution.”
“While we have focussed most of our energies on solutions in the Americas, Australia is naturally a very interesting market to enter in to and one which our unique and patented nanotechnology solutions are ideally suited for.”
The company’s proprietary technology that utilises naturally occurring earth elements in a nanoparticle form to uniquely solve problems that have plagued the mining and resource extraction sector for generations.
Recently, following a unique solution for a mine bordering a UNESCO World Heritage site, the company received accolades from UNESCO after solving environmental degradation and dust issues following years of applications of non-environmentally sound solutions. It has been recorded a breakthrough solution with people, the planet and profit considerations in mind.
“We naturally hope to have productive meetings in West Australia that would include mining contractors, government representatives and mine operators. If we can play a part in making the lives of Western Australian citizens safer, cleaner and healthier, then we would be privileged to assist in that role,” stated Voskuil.
UK-based LIFNano Therapeutics has been awarded £1 million funding by Innovate UK towards developing a new nano-based treatment for multiple sclerosis. The new funding will support the team as LIFNanoRx moves into clinical development, with the first clinical trial in humans planned to start in 2020-21 at London Blizard Institute. The company’s LIFNanoRx product, that utilizes soluble nanoparticles, exploits the body’s own repair pathways by precise targeting of LIF to the treatment site. The LIF nanoparticles can also be manufactured in bulk and stored until required, in marked contrast to the relatively expensive, globally restricted and specialised cell-based therapies currently being developed to treat MS. The company was founded by Dr Su Metcalfe in 2013 as a spin-out from the University of Cambridge. Read more at http://www.lifnano.com/intro.shtml
Frontier NanoSystems, LLC has won the 2016 Red Herring Top 100 Global award. The company is commercializing an advanced additive, high productivity manufacturing technology, BigNano, that can efficiently produce ultra-high performance materials, including metals/alloys/superalloys, ceramics/electroceramics and semiconductors.
American Process, Inc. has been granted a U.S. Patent for Hydrophobic Nanocellulosse. No. 9,499,637 on November 22, 2016 for “NANOCELLULOSE COMPOSITIONS AND PROCESSES TO PRODUCE SAME.” covers hydrophobic, lignin-coated nanocellulose, including both cellulose nanocrystals and cellulose nanofibrils. According to Dr. Kim Nelson, VP Nanocellulose Technology, “The novel hydrophobic lignin-coated nanocellulose addresses a well-known barrier to commercial utilization of nanocellulose. Conventional nanocellulose is highly hydrophilic and therefore poorly dispersed in non-polar plastics.”
Israeli startup Lyotropic Delivery Systems (LDS) Biotech‘s has started sale of its nanotech-based drug delivery product in in the US. The commercial launch of its cannabis-derived compound, which aims to relieve inflammation and pain, was announced earlier this month by LDS and US based company Ananda Scientific at a marijuana business conference held in Las Vegas. LDS and Ananda Scientific, a privately held Delaware corporation that produces and markets cannabis based products, entered into a licensing agreement in 2015. Read more at http://www.lds-biotech.com/
Korea-based company Grapheneall (http://grapheneall.com) has started ton-scale production of low-cost graphene oxide (GO) and reduced GO. The company is utilizing a new oxidation and purification process to decrease acidic waste. According to the company, the process is relatively simple and takes only one hour.
