The Companys key competitive advantages include an experienced board and management team, strategic investor backing and proprietary technology. The Companys bacterial oxidation and bioleaching technologies are commercially proven to liberate precious metals from difficult-to-treat sulphide ores and concentrates, with environmental and economic benefits. To date, the Company's patented BACOX technology has been used at three gold mines located in Australia, Tasmania and China.

 

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Put simply, bioleaching uses naturally-occurring bacteria in reactors (tanks) to oxidize sulphides. The key is that by providing the bacteria with optimal operating and living conditions in reactors, they are capable of oxidizing metal encapsulated in sulphides in as little as 5-6 days, as opposed to many years in their natural habitat. This is a common residence time in a commercial bioleach plant and the control of this and other parameters, such as the particle size of feed, are relatively simple and readily managed by operators with the correct training. There exist numerous opportunities, both in Canada and abroad, where bioleaching can be employed to reprocess existing tailings deposits left behind by miners. These deposits have two things in common. First, is the presence of sulphide minerals deemed to be too difficult to process at the time of mining. These sulphides oxidize naturally over time creating sulphuric acid in the process, also known as acid mine drainage (AMD). Second, the tailings tend to be older, therefore the liberation technology to capture metal used at the time would not be as efficient as that which is used today, resulting in economic grades of various metals trapped in these sulphide tailings. In essence, its is these residual metals that allow BacTech Environmental to pursue its goal of rehabilitating acid generating mine tailings, while receiving compensation from the resale of captured metals in the tailings.

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