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The Ceramext™ Process
Emgold through its wholly owned subsidiary Golden Bear Ceramics Company has an exclusive world wide license agreement with Ceramext™, LLC to develop and use the Ceramext™ Process to convert mine tailings and other waste materials into high quality ceramics. The Ceramext™ Process is a patented, energy efficient technology capable of converting a wide variety of raw materials, including mine tailings and fly ash into high-strength, low-porosity, industrial ceramics such as floor and roof tiles, brick, construction materials and other industrial and commercial products.
Ceramext™ has a patent on the equipment and other patents pending on the process, which uses a vacuum hot extrusion of waste materials to produce high quality industrial ceramics. The Ceramext™ Process has been demonstrated on a laboratory basis on a wide variety of materials including coal, lignite, and biomass fly ash, bottom ash, slag, clays, volcanic ash and mine tailings. Specifically, Ceramext™ has tested tailings from the Idaho-Maryland Mine and has successfully produced very high quality ceramic blanks suitable for forming into a wide variety of ceramic products using standard finishing technology. Independent marketing surveys conducted in California, indicate that floor tiles are worth approximately US$1.25 to $1.50 per square foot on a wholesale basis, which translates approximately US$400 to $500 per ton of feedstock to the process.
Golden Bear Ceramics is currently designing and building a pilot and demonstration plant in Grass Valley to commercialize the technology by converting mine tailings from the Idaho-Maryland Gold Mine into various ceramic products. Preliminary engineering studies completed to date indicate low capital and operating costs in comparison to conventional industrial ceramic operations. The Ceramext™ Process could allow a mining operation to make a useful and profitable product from mine tailings that would otherwise require expensive impoundment, which could consume large areas of land. The Ceramext™ Process could create additional income from mining operations and allow mines to continue to operate profitably even in times of very low commodity prices.
Ceramext Flow Diagram (PDF)
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