Traditional gold analysis, known as ‘fire assay’, is a centuries-old process that heats ore samples at extreme temperatures to determine the ingredients and quality of a metal. It is slow and dangerous, and produces waste and fumes that are hazardous to people and the environment. It is also time-consuming and labour-intensive, with analysis turnaround times that can stretch to several weeks.
Adelaide-based mining technology company Chrysos Corporation offers a faster, safer alternative known as PhotonAssay™. It provides a rapid, accurate, and less hazardous alternative for minerals analysis, and can analyse minerals such as gold, silver, and copper in minutes. Since the company’s inception in 2017, the use of PhotonAssay™ has prevented more than 4900 tonnes of hazardous waste and over 7300 tonnes of CO² emissions from entering the environment.
Chrysos Corporation CEO Dirk Treasure.
“PhotonAssay is faster, more accurate, less hazardous, and better for operators – both in terms of labour requirements and health and safety,” says Dirk Treasure, managing director and founding chief executive, Chrysos Corporation.
“It improves chain of custody because unlike fire assay, which has multiple stages, the minute a sample goes into a sample jar, it stays in that jar for the rest of its journey. There are fewer people touching it, which decreases the opportunity for human error. It’s better in every way compared to fire assay.”
Chrysos Corporation obtained the technology from Australia’s national science agency, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), which had worked on it for about 15 years before partnering with Chrysos Corporation for commercialisation.
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“The most important benefit, from my perspective, is the impact on operators,” says Treasure, a metallurgist with a background in research and development.
“Lead contamination is a big problem in fire assay laboratories around the world, and not just in emerging economies. By transitioning to PhotonAssay, customers completely remove that as a concern. I am proud to say that we are keeping operators safer with our technology,” he adds.
Delivering a more sustainable future
In September 2024, Chrysos secured $95 million in funding from CommBank to support its international growth. CommBank structured a principles-aligned Green Loan and facilitated this funding with verification from Det Norske Veritas (DNV) Business Assurance.
The collaboration underscores the potential of sustainable financing to support impactful, more environmentally conscious innovation in traditional industries. For Treasure, it was important that the business specifically obtain a Green Loan.
“It’s important for us to be able to identify and communicate that our technology is achieving better environmental and operator outcomes compared to traditional assaying and is doing good things for the industry,” says Treasure. “By the same token, CommBank is looking to fund projects that contribute to a sustainable future. So, we are both looking at the world the same way.”
Chrysos leases PhotonAssay™ units, building lasting relationships with miners and labs worldwide.
Chrysos Corporation leases its PhotonAssay™ units rather than selling them, which means it has an ongoing relationship with miners and laboratories worldwide.
“As a lease model business, we’re reasonably capital intensive, but in return, the units deliver long-term, forecastable, sustained revenue,” says Treasure. “We are cash-flow positive with our equipment, and each new unit we deploy generates extra cash flow early in its life cycle. Therefore, the loan we’ve obtained from CommBank has supported our growth. It’s about getting PhotonAssay units built and deployed to more miners and laboratories around the world.”
In leasing the equipment and having an ongoing relationship with miners, Chrysos is well positioned to support and enable increases in the efficiency and sustainability of mining operations.
“We are embedded in their operations, which gives us the chance to look at how we can help them do things better and more efficiently,” says Treasure. “What technologies or techniques could we bolt on to PhotonAssay to provide other useful data to support miners? How can we further simplify the process?”
Treasure is committed to supporting sustainability by removing lead contamination challenges, minimising carbon emissions, and reducing hazardous waste from analytical laboratories.
“For every fire assay operation we replace with PhotonAssay, we’re making a significant improvement. The partnership with CommBank enables us to grow faster, and to displace that dirty and outdated process more quickly.”
Things you should know
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