Q. For those that are new to the story, could you please describe to us what the PUREVAP™ technology is and some of its many advantages?
A. Most certainly. HPQ is the owner of quartz properties. Quartz can be processed, through multiple steps, into a high purity silicon metal which is an important element in solar panels. It helps convert solar energy into useful electricity. Many in the solar panel industry consider the cost of converting Quartz into solar grade silicon metal to be a limiting factor in the growth of the solar panel industry.
PyroGenesis was first engaged by HPQ to demonstrate, on a laboratory scale, that its one-step proprietary PUREVAPTM process could produce high purity silicon metal from quartz in just one step.
PyroGenesis was taken by the prospect of using a plasma-based process to convert Quartz into solar grade silicon metal as there seemed to be a strong market need for such. A number of years ago, a company by the name of Timminco saw its stock soar from 20 cents to over $30 and its market cap increased to over 3 billion of dollars when it was perceived that they had found a way to reduce the number of steps, not eliminate all steps, just reduce the number of steps, in the processing of quartz into solar grade silicon metal1. That is not to say that this is what we expect here, but it did give us confidence that there was a significant need for a cheaper way to make solar grade silicon metal and, on paper, at the time, it looked like plasma might be able to address issues where other processes failed (Figure 1).
A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/616c51e5-4644-46e2-b77d-2de4e8d362e7
To date, we are very pleased with the results and, in fact, believe we have already demonstrated better results than the Timminco process had in its day.