Chilean state-owned mining company Codelco has acquired a minority stake in US-based I-Pulse to enhance mining efficiency and reduce environmental impact.
Codelco will leverage I-Pulse's advanced high-pulsed power (HPP) technologies to improve rock fragmentation, precision cutting and drilling processes.
With this move, the Chilean company will join global miners BHP, Rio Tinto, Newmont, Ivanhoe Mines and Teck Resources as an investor in I-Pulse.
The collaboration builds on a letter of intent signed by Codelco and I-Pulse in May this year, focused on integrating pulsed energy technologies in mining.
It aims to combine Codelco's mining expertise with I-Pulse's technology solutions to create more efficient and environmentally friendly operations.
Codelco board chairman Máximo Pacheco said: “Innovation is key to the future of mining, and at Codelco, we face significant technical challenges that are at the forefront of human knowledge.
“The I-Pulse portfolio presents opportunities with high financial and strategic potential for mining, and with this step, we maintain our leading role at the forefront of the industry.”
Established in 2007 by Robert Friedland and Laurent Frescaline, I-Pulse focuses on applying pulsed energy technology across civilian sectors.
Its HPP technology uses electrical energy to release short but powerful electrical discharges. It lowers energy consumption by up to 80% during intensive stages.
The company’s I-ROX division uses in-house technology that leverages gigawatt-scale shock waves and tensile forces to break rock from the inside.
Its G-Pulse drilling technology also promises to unlock geothermal energy by using HPP to soften granite before drilling.
I-Pulse’s I-Mine division will merge I-ROX and G-Pulse technologies to facilitate continuous underground mining and processing, eliminating the need for chemical explosives.
I-Pulse co-founder and CEO Friedland said: “All of our management and scientists at I-Pulse welcome our new shareholder Codelco.
“Minerals are crucial to our daily lives and critical to meeting global energy and technology demands.
“The way the mining industry has always crushed rocks with compressive force cannot deliver the step change required to produce the vast amount of copper and other critical minerals needed to improve national security, build data centres and AI infrastructure, and meet the many demands of the energy transition.
“Our technology can reduce the energy required to unlock critical minerals from rock by up to 80% and could render the ball and SAG [semi-autogenous grinding] mill circuits obsolete.”
