An award-winning idea that has been backed up by Natural Resources Canada, BHP and the Government of South Australia, our patent-pending Transcritical CO2 Pulverization aims to reduce the global consumption of electricity by 1-2% (or the equivalent of what Germany consumes in a year).

The energy-hog culprit is mining comminution, or the process of reducing ore rock to smaller size so as to liberate the valuable minerals within.

Our technology replaces the traditional mechanical ways of grinding rock with a gas-based method; by using CO2 in a controlled thermodynamic regime we can break rock while saving energy and GHG emissions on the order of 35% that otherwise would have been consumed and emitted by the grinding mills and media used in traditional comminution circuits commonly employed today.

Envisioning Labs has spun off a new venture for the commercialization of this technology called Rockburst Technologies.

Two separate but complementary projects have evolved from the need to do something to the ever more pressing problem of wildland fires and the smoke they produce.

The first project, awarded by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and working in collaboration with The National Defence University of Malaysia, saw the development of a prototype capable of putting out peat fires, fires that burn underground and are infamous for being hard to detect and put out. Testing was successfully performed in the Borneo rainforest and a more advanced prototype is currently being developed.

The second project, PM Shield, earned an honorable mention by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) due to its simple but cost effective, positive pressure design to prevent and eliminate smoke and PM2.5 particles from wildfires entering homes. Prototypes are being developed and shared with the EPA for initial testing.

We have developed a light-based depth finder for boats and ships in response to a challenge sponsored by Transport Canada.

Current depth finders use sonar/echosounders, sound-based approaches to identify depth in water. This interferes with the communication and echolocation some marine mammals use to locate food and thrive. Of particular concern is the use of these devices in Western Canada and US where Southern Resident Killer Whales, as one of the most endangered species in the world, see their natural habitat criss-crossed by busy shipping routes and heavy recreational boating.

Our innovation uses Lidar, a light-based technology that measures the depth of the ocean by bouncing laser pulses off of the ocean floor, reducing and in some cases avoiding the need to use acoustic signals altogether.

We are in the final stages of developing a 3D printing powder bed testing device for Canada’s National Research Council that would allow the accurate identification of density in metal 3D printed parts, before they are formed.

This is important for the development of greater density and quality final metal parts for the aerospace, automobile and medical industry, reducing waste and cost associated with metal 3D printing and supporting advanced manufacturing with critical minerals.

What if we could use mining waste (tailings) to produce clean energy? That was the premise behind one of the two projects where we thought we could improve upon the current production of solar energy.

The first project considered the production of solar mirrors for concentrated solar plants manufactured out of silica-rich mine tailings. A project sponsored by one of the largest steel manufacturers in the world, we proved that not only is there a viable pathway to scale this process, but it could be transformed in a virtuous cycle where mine tailings are used to manufacture heliostats mirrors that consequently produce the energy required to process more mine tailings, etc.

The second project improved the design of the current steel-heavy, dual-axis solar trackers to a slimmer, cable tension-based design that cuts down the usage of structural steel and lowers the cost. Next design iterations will seek to test the use of sustainable structural materials like bamboo, that could improve access to clean energy in developing nations.