The Australian firm Pure Alumina Limited is on track to acquire Canada-based Polar Sapphire that owns one of the world’s most efficient and effective processes for making high purity alumina (HPA). Scott Nichol, the founder and chief executive of Polar Sapphire, who is soon becoming the Pure Alumina’s new managing director, confirmed the news. The deal is a company-maker for Pure Alumina, planning to become the lowest-cost producers of 5N HPA in the world.
Polar Sapphire is already operating a pilot plant in Canada that has produced sufficient quantities of HPA for supplying to its growing customer base as well as for product development. Nichol said in an interview that Polar Sapphire took five years to develop the equipment used in its HPA process.
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“We have developed specific equipment which allows us to lower our cost and make our process simpler,” Nichol says.
Nichol says that the two key advantages of the Polar Sapphire process is that it has less steps in the production process and that it can recycle the acid. It helps in cost savings and prevents emissions to the environment and reduces energy and water consumption.
“The cost of building a factory from our technology is significantly less because we have dramatically simplified the process for making HPA,” he said.
It is time saving and saves variable cost of production as the company does not need time to build the factory and get into production as quickly as possible.
Nichol considers it the right time for Polar Sapphire to commercialise its low cost HPA process to leverage on the growing HPA demand in LED lighting, lithium-ion battery separators, mobile phone camera lenses and finger print readers and other high-tech applications. The plant is forecast to generate strong cashflow due to the low cost and high quality products.
As a part of its deal Pure Alumina is undertaking a US$30 million capital raising to fund the purchase of Polar Sapphire, as well as the construction and commissioning of a commercial-size plant.
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