Ep55 Driving Change: Eco-Friendly Solutions in the Mining Industry, ft Don Weatherbee, Regenx Tech

In this episode, we dive into the fascinating world of eco-friendly mining technology with Don Weatherbee, CEO of Regenx Tech, a company specializing in recycling precious metals from catalytic converters. Don shares the company's unique hydro metallurgic process, which is more environmentally sound than traditional mining and smelting. We discuss the market for platinum and palladium, the potential for growth, and the challenges in the recycling industry. Don also reveals Regenx Tech's journey from a junior mining company to a pioneer in catalytic converter recycling, with a focus on the underserved diesel market. We also discuss its fund raising approach. Join us as we explore the intersection of mining, recycling, and clean technology.

ABOUT DON: Don Weatherbee is the Chief Executive Officer of Regenx Tech Corp., a provider of a new clean-tech solution for the recovery of precious metals from end of life materials.  He is an accomplished Senior Executive with extensive experience in leading complex operations with over 28 years in the mining and material processing sectors including 20 years at the executive level. He holds Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Alberta, a CPA, CMA from the Chartered Professional Accountants of Alberta, and a Certified Information Technology Professional (CITP) designation from the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. Don has worked for both privately held and publicly listed companies throughout his career.

FEEDBACK: Email Host | HOST, PRODUCTION, ARTWORK: Joseph Jacobelli | MUSIC: Ep0-29 The Open Goldberg Variations, Kimiko Ishizaka Ep30-50 Orchestra Gli Armonici – Tomaso Albinoni, Op.07, Concerto 04 per archi in Sol - III. Allegro. | Ep51 – Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 in G, Movement I (Allegro), BWV 1049 Kevin MacLeod. Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

Transcript

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Ep55 Driving Change: Eco-Friendly Solutions in the Mining Industry, ft Don Weatherbee, Regenx Tech

Don W: So I began my career in the accounting industry, but always was more of a hands-on field type person than, just the numbers and, sitting in the office doing that sort of thing.

So always was interested in making sure I understood and picked apart what the business was. started with a coal mining company and wasn't even sure why coal was still being, mined. moved into the Alberta oil sands and then, transitioned to RegenX, which when I started was a junior miner.

And it had an opportunity to move into eco-friendly technology. So it was a great fit to be getting into something that was still mining related, but it was, moving forward into a new technology area. And so it, gave me a lot of interest to move into that piece. 

Joseph J: That's great. you mentioned, the company that you're currently CEO of RegenX Tech. So maybe a couple of words on the company and what the company actually does? Sure. 

Don W: the company now, more from, being a junior exploration company through some material processing, led us into the catalytic converter recycling market.

 we were approached by Davis Recycling, who had an opportunity in catalytic converters specifically in the diesel end of it to recycle platinum and palladium from end-of-life catalytic converters. RegenX has a proprietary hydro metallurgic process that breaks down the honeycomb structure.

Inside a catalytic converter and strips out the precious metals’ platinum and palladium so that we can use those in the commodities market. 

Joseph J: Wow. And we'll get into some of the more nitty gritty details about the whole process in a minute because I'm absolutely fascinated by that. Just in terms of macro questions, for those like myself, we're not experts in the field.

What exactly are the principle precious metals key to the energy transition and why are they precious? I mean, at least the precious metals that you're involved with. Sure. So, 

Don W: we're involved with primarily platinum and palladium, platinum and palladium can be interchanged and used one for the other in most, applications.

they're precious because they're some of the most rare elements. In the earth crust. So there's not, large amounts of deposits of these precious metals, but they're also precious in the fact that they can be used in two sort of complimentary ways in energy, The primary use right now is in, catalytic converters, and uses their oxidation potential to, convert, smog related gases.

Into less harmful, emissions, like converting, carbon monoxide to carbon dioxide. So they're an oxidizing agent in those fundamentals, but alternatively, they're also conductors. And there is a large role in the future, especially for platinum for its, uses anodes in, fuel cells. so they are on both sides of the energy market, one on the fuel cell side, but also on the emissions control side.

Joseph J: Got it. in terms of the market, if you could, how big is the market right now? In dollar terms and what's the size likely going to be like by 2030, by 2050. is this a growth area? 

Don W: Right now, the platinum and palladium, there is currently 17 million ounces used.

at a thousand, dollars an ounce, roughly, you're talking in the billions of usage. of that, about 35% comes from recycled sources. 

Joseph J: Oh, wow. 

Don W: The growth side of it, like I said, catalytic converters have been increasing. that growth was started in the European market. followed quite quickly by the North American, the EPA US side, but now it's also being highly driven. In, Asia Pacific, China's regulations have increased substantially.

So the usage of catalytic converters is a worldwide issue and the demand for the precious metals has been growing substantially. longer term, the demand for catalytic converters is probably going to decrease. Because of electrification of vehicles, but that electrification, I mean, some of the projections of how it could be, 80 percent by 2040, but those things aren't just happening, so increased regulations, lower, lower rate of uptake of electrification are going to continue the demand for catalytic converters, also, You've got the substitution, one of the major, electrification, outlets is going to be fuel cells.

So, the demand for the PGMs, platinum group metals, projects to have more required, platinum than is currently already in use. And just for people's knowledge, the majority of the supply, like 80 percent Platinum and Palladium comes from two sources. South Africa and Russia. So geopolitically, the concept of increased supply for mining is probably not one that you can count on.

Don W: this increase of requirements. Is going to have to come from alternative recycling. 

Joseph J: So right now, only from South Africa and from Russia. 

Don W: Not only, but 80%. 80 percent of the supply. Comes from those two locations. There's some in Zimbabwe, but you know, your majority, your vast majority is, you're South African and Russia sources. 

Joseph J: Got it. in terms of the recovery of, platinum palladium, is it environmentally sound? is it sustainable? And what are some of the environmental and sustainability challenges? 

Don W: there are, three sources, mainly right now. There's mining more out of the ground, which, isn't sustainable.

the recycling is broken down into two fundamentals. the majority of recycling Is done through smelting. the majority of the smelting takes your gasoline engine, catalytic converters. smelting. Those who aren't sure is fundamentally just, melting at very high temperatures.

To break down all the elements into their separate pieces and burn away any of , the undesirable pieces. So projections we'd heard is sort of a smelter creates about 1500 kilograms of CO2, for every ton it processes. the last opportunity is what we've moved into called hydro metallurgic, recovery, which is chemical leaching.

And so we use chemistry to break apart the elements, and then create, a dirty concentrate, a black powder that, we have, an upgrader just brings it to the, to purity. 

Joseph J: Hmm. 

Don W: So our environmental footprint. is very small as compared to mining and smelting. 

Joseph J: Got it. And that segways to talking a little bit about region X tech and the process and technology.

Again, I'm not a scientist or a mining expert. and probably most of the, listeners will not be, but could you just tell me a little bit about. The brief history of region X. I mean, when were you founded? You know, how, where are you at, at your development stage? 

Don W: Sure. So we have a long history of our company.

we were fundamentally a junior mining company. we were one of those companies that found properties, dug holes, finding more resources, trying to build up a resource and then, you know, either bring it to being a mine or sell it off to someone else. And back about 2015, we had sold one property and we're looking around and saying, okay, so how do we reinvest this money?

And the concept of finding another property and digging more holes didn't hold a lot of value for us. We started looking at alternatives and were introduced to a material processing technology with the capabilities to recycle water. And it was going to be used to, to reprocess tailings, especially gold mines.

what was. Uneconomic to recover, 100 years ago could be, recovered with current technology. 

So that was the genesis of what we were going to move into. we got approached by different groups of saying, okay, you can process material. Could you do it in e waste?

And we were down that path. And then also then, like I said, with Davis asked, could we do it with catalytic converters? And so in 2000, we started lab testing, the catalytic converter, option. And so to move from lab scale to a pilot plant, then to the design of a commercial plant, we've, built the first module of our commercial plant, in Tennessee, and are bringing that online producing at a commercial scale.

our module one is projected to be operating at 5, 000 pounds A Day of feedstock. Right on that edge of being a full-fledged revenue generating company. 

Joseph J: Got it. So, just to step back a little bit because maybe I misunderstood the year. You started getting into catalytic converters area was, did you say 2000 or 2020, 

Don W: 2020, 

Joseph J: so for the last four years, you basically be building that up and the module now, the first module is just about to be commissioned. is that correct? 

Don W: Well, it's commissioned, but we've had like any technology, a new technology. you take two steps forward and one step back. So you've been right on that cusp of being fully operational for a little bit here. We just keep, fine tuning our operation at this moment. 

You're still basically testing, optimizing. And you think maybe 12 months from now, it's going to be, Oh, 

We're looking at next in the new year here. We should be fully operational, right?

So Q1. Great. 

Joseph J: and, just again on that. in the presentation that I saw from the company, there was a statement recycling of diesel. SIC converters is an underserved market. could you clarify and expand on this particular statement?

Don W: Sure. there are two, In the simplistic terms, two types of catalytic converters, your gasoline, which are based on a ceramic honeycomb, and in your, to break it down, a catalytic converter is like a muffler, but inside the muffler is a honeycomb, and it's a very porous, very, a lot of holes.

to structure that's coated with your precious metals and the concept is that air flow from the engine flows through this honeycomb and it wants to, you want the air to flow over as many surfaces as you can to create that chemical reaction to convert the smog gases. into less harmful gases. So the gasoline, converters are based on ceramic. 

Don W: The diesel ones have a honeycomb that's based off of silicon carbide, S I C. Silicon carbide is in the diesels because they need to run hotter. And so they need a more robust honeycomb the dominant recyclers, a smelter that melts them.

So if you're throwing in this more robust substrate into their, their smelters, they get operational issues. They run less efficient, all these issues they have with processing silicon carbide, so they prefer not to run that at all. a lot of smelters even reject outright silicon carbide.

So there's a group of these diesel engine converters. That don't have a home to be recycled at this point. And our process is designed to run those effectively. 

Joseph J: you mentioned earlier that there were two, ways of doing it. One is the way you guys are doing it. And the other way is, the smeltering, which, the smeltering, which I presume, It's extremely energy intensive. How energy intensive is your own operation? 

Don W: We are very low energy. the major energy that we have to do is heat our formula, up to about 90 degrees Celsius. So we're not even bringing our formula to a boil. the energy required is much, much less. than anything involved with the smelting process.

Joseph J: And for the little energy that you're using, are you using, currently clean energy or, you just have to use whatever the grid offers you? 

we're using natural gas. Got it. 

Don W: For our heating 

Joseph J: Are there any long-term plans to kind of convert that into clean energy 

Well, natural gas 

Don W: is one of your cleaner burning, pieces. And it's one of the most efficient ways to heat. So, for now, we're going to probably be, utilizing that, option. Most of the other pieces, when you have to use electricity, you’re a lot less efficient on heating than you are on natural gas.

Joseph J: I'm not doing much about this particular space in general. I'm formerly a utility analyst, so, I'm more on that side rather than, mining related, segments. Could you tell me, are there many firms, in the U S or anywhere else around the world That are doing something similar than what you're doing.

Don W: We're 

We're the market leader in this one. There are some other firms, around the world. One out of Australia, one out of Spain, one out of Canada, that are entering this market space, but they're all still at the lab scale. sort of the testing laboratory baseline.

this is a two-pronged problem. the chemistry is probably the easier side to do. There's a chemistry problem and a mechanical issue. it's a processing, problem to move this material through different segments of the process, effectively and efficiently, while it's changing states.

You have solids, you have liquids, you have slurries, you have all these different, you have different temperatures, you have different, chemical compositions. So moving it around your process is just as much of a technology advancement as the chemistry side.

Joseph J: well, one more question about, the company in general, in the medium to long term, are there any avenues to expand further than the US? I mean, going overseas, going to other countries, and if so, which countries? 

Don W: Oh, yes. this is a worldwide, industry, wherever there's cars, there is opportunity.

one of the fastest growing areas of, vehicle penetration is the Asian Pacific market. China is the highest growing area of, additional vehicles. we look at this as, as, as the U S market being our starting point, our springboard that we then, once we have.

Enough product we'll be looking to move out globally. 

Joseph J: if I can go back with another, maybe more general question. in the, Asian climate finance podcast, we haven't had a lot of opportunities to have. Pure clean tech companies.

we've had people talking about solar to people talking about wind. we even had, ocean energy as one of the subjects, but in terms of the development stages. you started looking at it in 2020. Now, 2024. 2025, you're ready to go for full commercialization.

And it may take, one to five years for you to reach whatever scale you want to reach. During that period in terms of financing, ideally one wants patient capital, people who are not going to be, calling you up at midnight and say, how's the equipment going right now?

so, were you able to, because you're already, you're already listed companies. So, Were you able to get some patient capital or you basically just have to, to deal with, with the stock market investors, which by nature are more short term because you're dictated by quarterly earnings. 

Don W: So we've relied. On the stock market for our financing for the history of our company. our core shareholder group has been extremely, dedicated, loyal, and helpful. I understand some of their frustration of wanting things to happen faster.

But they've shown a lot of trust and faith in us as we've moved forward, it's been less on quarterly earnings because we haven't had earnings more so on the story of development. and how we have shown what we want to get to. we've had loyal and patient, investors in us.

And we've gone to them a few times to help us, raise another level. Of, financing. in fact, we've done a couple of rights offerings where we've allowed the long term investors, the chance to get discounted. Shares and maintain their position instead of bringing in, new groups who get to share in the big.

Without diluting the long term, groups. There's no great way to do it. but we've, been pleased with our investment group. 

Joseph J: And the reason, I guess you can guess where I'm coming from, because typically a cleantech company with, a developing technology, you're not listed.

You do your, series, whatever. and then, you know, that's how you raise funds and then you have a lot of patient capital involved, which gives you A little bit more leeway. So, doing that as a listed company, it sounded to me quite challenging from that management expectation.

Don W: I would also look at what our model is. And it's the same one as, as the cleantech can be looked in the same way as the mining exploration model, that mining exploration model that's well done the path of, of publicly listed companies, you need a lot of patient capital for that.

Because you're going out finding a property, you're digging holes and grounds, you're proving up your resources, you're moving the forward project forward and to revenue generation. it's the same business model and it's the same investment. Thought process as a junior minor, the clean tech space is that you've got the concept.

You've got to do the work to develop your business and increase your ability to move forward by investing in development. 

Joseph J: That's a very good point. It is a very similar business. Yeah. that's great. I think I've already abused too much of your time.

are there any conclusions or concluding remarks? especially in terms of the long term outlook of the company in the industry that you wanted to mention. 

Don W: We're excited with where we are. And we see a great opportunity in front of us, short term, long term, there is a great potential for what we are offering and for where we're positioned.

we believe that we are going to be leading this industry well into the future. 

Joseph J: That's great. And hopefully, we can catch up. 12 months, 18 months from now and see where you're at and how the development is going.

thank you very much for your time. I really enjoyed the conversation. Sorry about the, simplistic questions from me. 

Don W: no, there's never a simple question because it always digs deeper into what you're doing. 

Joseph J: Got it. So once again, thank you so much for participating in the podcast.

Don W: if anybody's interested in following us we're listed on the Canadian exchange. under the symbol RGX and the U. S. exchange under the symbol RGXTF. our website is www.regenx.tech. 

Joseph J: Great. That will be in the show notes as well.

So, people can get the information from there just in case they didn't write it down. Thank you so much for your time, Don. 

Don W: Thank you.