Progressive Planet working towards commercializing pozzolan to create sustainable building product

Exploring alternative markets for zeolite Multiple applications across a range of industries Exploring for nickel at one of its British Columbia assets What Progressive Planet Solutions does: Progressive Planet Solutions Inc (CVE:PLAN) (OTCMKTS:ASHXF) is a Canada-headquartered mining company, which is focused on industrial minerals. The group's flagship asset is its Z1 zeolite quarry in British Columbia (BC). The group is also earning a 100% option on the Z2 natural pozzolan property near Falkland in the Canadian province. The firm as well owns a 100% interest in the Heffley Creek metals and natural pozzolan property. All three of these projects are within a one-hour drive of the city of Kamloops. Zeolite, which can be used as a pozzolan, has properties that make it very useful in many industries. For example, it is negatively charged and has a hollow molecular structure, which allows it to trap other materials for filtration. It is used in a wide variety of applications: water purification, radioactive waste containment, composting, animal feed, as a pozzolan in cement and as an additive to soil, among others. It can also be used as a soil additive, with particular interest applications for cannabis. Natural pozzolan is garnering increasing interest from the construction industry to use as an alternative to fly ash, the supply of which is dropping off as coal-fired power plants close. When used in cement and concrete mixes, fly ash improves the strength of concrete and makes it easier to pump, hence the interest in finding a suitable alternative. The company's PozGlass SCM product combines natural pozzolan, recycled, post-consumer glass, and proprietary formulations and processes. The objective is to displace fly ash, a by-product of burning coal for electricity generation, with an environmentally friendly product that creates enhanced properties in ready-mix and pre-cast concrete. The company is focusing on monetizing zeolite in four areas: supplementary cementing materials, agricultural soil amendment (including cannabis applications), as a flowing/anti-caking agent for livestock feeds, and as an alternative to straight road salt for de-icing/traction aid. How is it doing: Progressive Plant has made progress on a number of fronts so far in 2021. On April 15, the company revealed that it has expanded its comminution plant's toll processing capacity by a factor of eight times with the addition of a larger ball mill to keep up with growing demand. Comminution is the reduction of solid materials from one average particle size to a smaller average particle size, by crushing, grinding, cutting, or other processes. Since mid-March 2021, the company said, it has received over $250,000 in purchase orders for rock powders from its existing customers. The firm said it has also received requests for quotes from multiple new potential customers. To keep up with rising demand, Progressive Planet added it has hired staff and “started running a full second shift” from April 12 at its comminution plant. Progressive Planet previously announced on August 14, 2020, that it had completed the design and construction of its comminution plant to enable easy disassembly. It has the capability to resize rocks from six inches to 5 microns. Just for scale, one inch is equivalent to 25,400 microns. The company ordered a larger ball mill with nearly eight times the processing volume in January this year to process more material per hour. The company said it has ordered “additional equipment to further automate the processing capability of the comminution plant.” The equipment is expected to arrive and be fully operational next month, said Progressive Planet. Meanwhile, the company said it is looking for a permanent facility to house its growing comminution business. On January 25, Progressive Planet said it has engaged C&CS Atlantic Inc., whose principal is Dr Michael Thomas, to complete the testing required to commercially launch PozGlass SCM. In 2020, the University of Alberta conducted an initial set of tests on the company's Natural Pozzolan Blend, which showed superior qualities to fly ash as a supplementary cementing material. However, due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the university was only able to complete some of the necessary tests. The additional testing will be conducted in two phases with phase one expected to be completed by the end of April 2021 and phase two in the third quarter of 2021. Subject to the successful completion of the additional tests, such as compressive strength and alkali-silica reactivity, PLAN's management will move to a full-scale commercial roll-out of the PozGlass SCM product. Progressive Planet has also been busy adding to its research and advisory team in 2021. In March, the company announced the appointment of Dr Greg Silverberg to its research team. It noted that Dr Silberberg has a keen interest in developing sustainable building materials and will help guide the company as it takes on related product development initiatives to decarbonize the production of cement," he added. The appointment is part-time in nature, and he remains in his existing role with his current employer, it added. Progressive Planet pointed out that it now has three highly skilled professionals under contract to work on developing the next generation of cement products which focus on reducing its carbon footprint. Aside from Dr Silverberg, these professionals include Dr Chad Vecitis, appointed in February, and Dr Doug Brown. Vectis is the CTO and co-founder of Nth Cycle that is redefining the metal supply chain by developing novel metallurgic technologies and an Associate of Environmental Science & Engineering at the Harvard Paulson School of Engineering & Applied Sciences. In February, the company announced the appointments of Randy Gue and Chris Halsey-Brand to its advisory board. It noted that Gue spent 17 years with Lafarge Canada as the director of business development and resource recovery where he led Lafarge's Western North American initiative to reduce variable operating costs by developing business-to-business relationships primarily related to the recovery and reuse of wastes and by-product streams from industries and institutions. Halsey-Brand, who will assist in financial analysis of the first PozGlass SCM manufacturing plant and will also assist in evaluating opportunities to grow the company through strategic acquisitions, is both a Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA) and a Chartered Business Valuator (CBV) who owns and operates a successful food processing business. Earlier in the same month, Progressive Planet also named Brian Sheppard and Nicole Stefenelli, with both appointments are part-time in nature, and each remaining in their existing roles with their current employers. The company noted that Sheppard, who will advise on marketing and communication efforts, has over 25 years of experience at Canada's leading advertising agencies, working on many of the country's most powerful brands. He is currently the Executive Creative Director of Saatchi & Saatchi Canada. In addition to creating effective, award-winning advertising, he is also an instructor in the Advertising faculty of the Ontario College of Art & Design (OCADU) in Toronto. It added that Stefenelli will advise on procurement of commercial amounts of post-consumer glass and other commodities required for the commercialization of PozGlass SCM. She is CEO and Founder of Urban Impact Recycling, a well-established recycling company serving customers in British Columbia's Lower Mainland. She brings three decades of experience in the field of finding solutions to the growing problem of corporate and institutional waste. And on the financing front, in January, Progressive Planet announced plans to raise C$1.4 million gross from a private placing for general working capital. The offering was for up to 7 million units at C$0.20 per unit, with each unit consisting of one share and one share purchase warrant, which entitles the holder to buy a further company share for C$0.25 per share for two years. Progressive Planet also noted that Countryman Investments Ltd, a company of which David Richardson is the principal, intended to subscribe for 500,000 units. Richardson holds, directly and indirectly, more than 20% of the firm's share capital and is thus a so-called 'control person'. Inflection points: Progress on permanent facility to house growing comminution business News of further University of Alberta tests on the company's Natural Pozzolan Blend What the boss says: In April's statement, Progressive Planet CEO Steve Harpur said: "The current plant provides the company with an opportunity to generate fast revenues from an existing business, but the facility is also going to serve as a testing centre for the development of PozGlass SCM.” Harpur added that he believes the demand for pozzolan-based cement powders will accelerate as fly ash is no longer generated from combusting coal. “We are also seeing tremendous demand to toll process minerals as farmers switch away from chemical fertilizers to natural fertilizers. the purchase orders we received in the last month greatly exceed the tonnage of material processed since we opened our comminution plant last August and we are using the same equipment we use to process natural pozzolans and pulverized post-consumer glass," he concluded. Contact the author at jon.hopkins@proactiveinvestors.com