MONTREAL – St-Georges Eco-Mining Corp. (CSE: SX) (OTCQB: SXOOF) (FSE: 85G1) is pleased to announce that its wholly owned subsidiary, H2SX, has executed a final agreement with the South Korean company Wintech Energy Corp. Ltd.
The agreement allows H2SX to access Wintech Energy’s green hydrogen technology. Through this agreement, Wintech Energy becomes a shareholder of H2SX.
‘This technology will make it possible to produce hydrogen with a low carbon footprint and low energy intensity. In our jargon, this is what we call ccH2, which is cheap and clean hydrogen,’ said Sabin Boily, CEO of H2SX.
In contrast to traditional hydrogen production, this green hydrogen production process does not require any freshwater molecules. It is based on the separation of the methane molecule coming from natural gas, or ideally from biogas produced by organic waste, into gaseous hydrogen – the ccH2 molecule – and high purity carbon powder. The process can be almost ten times more energy-efficient than water electrolysis as it does not consume any of this ultra-stable and precious molecule, leaving water available for humans, animals, and agriculture.
Wintech Energy
Wintech Energy’s proprietary technology uses microwave plasma and is a collaboration between the Korean Institute of Fusion Energy (KFE, formally the Korea National Fusion Research Institute – NFRI), the Korea Energy Institute (KIER), Kwangwoon University, Wintech Energy, and the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE).
‘This agreement with H2SX will allow Wintech to demonstrate our unique expertise beyond our borders and actively work to implement strategic, innovative technology solutions to fight climate change,’ stated Jung Cheol Park, CEO of Wintech Energy.
Wintech’s financial partners and business networks
Wintech also benefits greatly from the support of its financial partners and their business networks in its international deployment.
‘We know that the hydrogen economy will become an increasingly important part of the investment portfolio at KB in the future. Wintech has such potential, and we will be seriously looking for opportunities in this sector, both here and elsewhere,’ noted Peter Chunsoo Park, Managing Director, Head of Global Business & Strategy, KB Securities.
The ccH2 technology will allow St-Georges to realize the full synergistic potential of its products and subsidiaries’ by-products: from the refining of critical materials from its future mining activities, through the possibility of direct use of the ccH2 technology in reduction processes up to the production of ‘green’ clean hydrogen-based acids, to its battery recycling activities.
The high purity nanocarbon powder that is the by-product of the ccH2 technology is suitable for anode electrodes for lithium-ion batteries. The ultimate valorization of process rejects into value-added fertilizer for St-Georges is an example of the potential of ccH2 in the current global context of fertilizer shortages.
The Transaction
H2SX is acquiring a global non-exclusive license as well as an exclusive license for the territories of Iceland, the State of Nevada of the United States of America, and the Provinces of Quebec and Ontario of Canada. The exclusive license also covers all-natural resource-based operations in Canada.
Fertilizer Technology Update and Public Sector Contribution
Additionally, H2SX, St-Georges, Wintech, and their partners are announcing their intention to set up a major industrial research chair with the mandate to ‘evaluate, develop, and commercialize cheap and clean hydrogen-based fertilizers’. The research chair will be located at the Cintech Agroalimentaire agri-food research center in Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec.
‘Since Cintech Agroalimentaire’s mission is to increase the innovation and competitiveness of the Quebec agri-food industry by supporting R&D, a unique new research chair in the fertilizer sector for greener and low costs innovative additives and supplements is in line with our objective of decarbonizing our industry,’ added Jean Lacroix, CEO of Cintech Agroalimentaire, as he welcomed the creation of the new research chair.
Cintech Agroalimentaire will be responsible for, among other things, the scientific direction of the chair and the use of private funds to find public subsidies to match private contributions. H2SX will benefit from the commercial spin-off of the discoveries and the scientific and technical breakthroughs resulting from the chair’s work. The Company expects that the government could deploy an estimate of CA $2 Million over the next five years to support the initiative.
‘Green hydrogen technology is a natural fit across all our business verticals (…) with lithium production, battery recycling, and nickel resource development (…) it will be essential in the making of large quantities of low-cost fertilizers from the by-products of these operations (…) creating endless synergies with one of the goals being to be the lowest cost H2 producer in the industry (…) Our core philosophy is to close the loops in our processes with circular green technologies, no waste, more profits (…)’ commented Enrico Di Cesare, St-Georges’ VP R&D.
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