Introducing Zincovery
Zinc is the fourth most-used metal in the world, relied upon for galvanization to prolong the life of steel products. Globally zinc dusts containing $10B USD worth of zinc are generated from the steel recycling industry every year. Yet only half of this dust is recycled, through an expensive process that's more emissions-intensive than mining it in the first place.
Zincovery has pioneered a recycling solution that reduces emissions by up to 95% and processing costs by 45%. The end output is a 100% recycled, low carbon and high purity zinc product that’s currently not available despite customer demand. Plus, the process also generates a highly valuable, low-impact black iron oxide pigment as a co-product.
Who are Zincovery
Zincovery was founded in 2018 at the University of Canterbury by then master's student Jonathan Ring and his professor Aaron Marshall. Ring was encouraged by Marshall to explore the issue of zinc waste for his post-grad study.
In 2020 the organisation, having pioneered a novel new technique, won our C-Prize Challenge. Realising a challenge in commercialising their technology, Zincovery identified furnace dust from scrap recycling as the market segment they needed.
Today, the small but passionate team have a working facility and a long list of potential customers, eagerly awaiting the day that production can be scaled up to support their needs.
Benefits to the innovation ecosystem
Zincovery’s low carbon product will have a sizable impact on a number of industries and market segments globally. Zinc is a key component to produce brass and bronze, often used for high-precision engineering. The creation of low carbon zinc helps to create low carbon brass and bronze also, creating a new and important market segment.
Zincovery has worked extensively with a number of New Zealand based businesses to produce bespoke, one-off equipment and instruments, used as part of their extraction process. As the company scales up, so will the opportunities for innovation from these high-tech firms. Excitingly other businesses in Aotearoa New Zealand will also be able to access Zincovery’s advanced equipment and labs in future.
The Zincovery team works extensively with other innovators across NZ and is actively attracting overseas talent to create an even better-connected, more knowledgeable ecosystem.
They’re already working with other Ārohia recipients, including Neocrete, who can utilise the black iron oxide pigment that’s created as a co-product.
What the panel had to say about Zincovery:
Zincovery are an exemplar of a trailblazer, leading the way for other innovators and creating opportunities for benefits to the innovation ecosystem. They demonstrated considerable benefits with breadth and depth and plans to deliver.
The presentation delivered was a team effort, with the CEO being one of the team, displaying inclusiveness, acknowledgement of diversity and learning differences on a personal level, and the importance of these.
How Zincovery will be investing their grant
The next step for Zincovery is the development of their demonstration plant, serving a small number of customers. The grant will play a substantial part in the design, procurement, installation and commissioning of the facility, which will be built right here in Aotearoa New Zealand. The demonstration plant will pave the way for a full-scale commercial facility in future.
The grant will also support further market development and development of further patents, as well as fine-tuning technology to ensure its robustness.
“At Zincovery we’re excited to have received the Callaghan Innovation Ārohia Trailblazer Grant. This support will accelerate our development, allowing us to invest deeply in New Zealand’s innovation ecosystem. We’re looking forward to hiring highly skilled and ambitious people and partnering with other innovative kiwi companies to decarbonize the zinc industry.”
Jonanthan Ring, Zincovery, CEO and Co-Founder
Zincovery team members in their Zinc recovery facility
Zincovery
Founded: 2018
Sector/industry: Cleantech
Think you could be a Trailblazer?
