Notice re: Relationship with Electrometals Technology Ltd
GEO2 LIMITED 2000-05-26 ASX-SIGNAL-G
HOMEX - Melbourne
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In February 2000, Geo2 completed transactions whereby it became a
significant shareholder in Electrometals with a shareholding of
2,500,000 shares. It has now taken a further placement of 500,000
shares at 20c, which has increased Geo2's shareholding in
Electrometals to 8.5%.
In addition Geo2 has accepted a position on the Board and Mr Charles
Laycock has agreed to serve as a non-executive director of
Electrometals.
ELECTROMETALS & GEO2'S ENVIROCLEAN PROCESS
Geo2 recently purchased an Electrometals electrowinning cell (EMEW)
for the recovery of metals, especially heavy metals. The removal of
heavy metals such as lead arsenic, manganese, copper, zinc, mercury
and cadmium - all of which are highly toxic - from existing
contaminated sites is extremely difficult and the treatment of the
problem with existing technologies is expensive.
Geo2's Enviroclean soil remediation technology is an acid leaching
process for removing metals from soils and is being developed to
enable on site remediation of heavy metal contaminated soils at a
cost cheaper than the unacceptable landfill option. This process is
designed to enable the recovery metals to be re-used by industry and
for the cleaned soil to be utilised as a re-usable resource.
Geo2 has been working closely with Electrometals on recovering lead
from the Enviroclean leach liquor, which contains the lead removed
from the soil. Results from these trials have been very encouraging.
Success in this area will allow Geo2 to finalise the research project
that has been partly funded by a Commonwealth Government START grant.
It will also help Geo2 take a significant step towards
commercialising the Enviroclean process. This technology is seen as
having significant opportunities for use in industrialised countries,
especially the USA.
ELECTROMETALS AND GEO2'S GREEN PRECIPITATE PROCESS (GPP)
The GPP is designed for the remediation of acid mine drainage waters
that are contaminated with sulphides and heavy metals. The process
turns the pollutants in the contaminated water into insoluble mineral
form at which point they can be separated from the water.
The work to be undertaken on the GPP is to test the ability of the
EMEW to recover metals from the precipitate.
Geo2's aim is to develop a technology packaged around its Green
Precipitate process. This will allow acid mine drainage water to be
neturalised while being cleaned of dissolved pollutant metals. The
resultant water will be useable by people, industry and agriculture.
The metals are to be recovered from the precipitate in a useable
form.
On 11th May 2000, Electrometals made an announcement to the ASX that:
"Electrometals also wished to advise that it's EMEW technology has
recently been trialed in laboratory scale an water obtained from the
Berkeley Pit in Montana, USA,............... The current trial
................confirmed that our EMEW technology will extract
copper from the Berkeley Pit water down to very low levels and
deliver that copper in the form of saleable metal. It appears from
the trial that this can be done at a cash cost well below the current
price of copper. It follows that our technology could be used to
profitably extract most of the substantial quantities of dissolved
copper in the Berkeley Pit, and thereby achieve environmental
benefits while also generating funding for other remediation
procedures to complete the clean up of this site".
Geo2 aims to couple the EMEW technology with its own GPP to create a
technology package that will be the first truly economic, efficient
and complete acid mine drainage remediation process.
C Laycock
EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN |
