BURSTA major announcement about the future of critical-mineral production at the Trail smelter has uncovered the story of a local trailblazer who helped lay its foundation decades ago.
The connection began when longtime Trail Times reader Walter Siemens, who now lives in the Lower Mainland, read the newspaper’s July 23 story, “What is gallium? The little-known metal that could shape Trail’s future.”
The story examined gallium and its potential importance to Trail following a July 7 announcement that Teck Resources, the Canada Growth Fund and Natural Resources Critical Minerals Accelerator had signed a $400 million agreement to expand critical mineral production at Teck Trail Operations.
The agreement is part of a broader plan that could see an investment of up to $850 million at Teck Trail to sustain and further expand critical-mineral production at the smelter.
While the story focused on gallium, a soft, silvery chemical element, it reminded Siemens of his longtime friend Dr. Daniel Boateng, PEng, a local chemical engineer, who helped develop the process used to recover and produce another critical mineral — germanium — at what was then, Cominco.
Siemens contacted the Times and put the newspaper in touch with Dr. Boateng, who continues to live locally during the warmer months and spends the remainder of the year in his native Ghana.
Boateng’s story offers a timely look at the people and research that helped establish Teck Trail’s place in germanium production long before the metalloid became recognized as a critical mineral of strategic global importance.
Born and raised in Ghana, Boateng graduated from the University of Science and Technology in Kumasi in 1973.
After briefly working as a chemical engineer for Tarkwa Goldfields in Ghana, he moved to Canada for graduate studies at the University of Toronto, earning master’s and doctoral degrees in chemical engineering.
He joined Cominco in Trail as a research engineer in 1980.
Boateng was promoted to senior research engineer and then senior development engineer before moving into plant operations as superintendent of Specialty Leaching.
His responsibilities later expanded when he became operating manager of Leaching.
That role placed him in charge of several plants, including Sulphide Leaching — the largest of them — as well as Oxide Leaching, Zinc Pressure Leach, the Indium-Germanium Plant and Germanium Refining Plant, and the Cadmium Plant.
During his final years with the company, Boateng served as business strategy manager.
His involvement with germanium began at Cominco’s Technical Research Centre in Trail, where researchers were confronting both a metallurgical problem and a promising opportunity.
Germanium, a chemical element, is present in zinc concentrate processed to produce zinc, but only in minute quantities.
(Before recovery, germanium is indistinguishable; once refined, it becomes a hard, brittle, greyish-white material with a metallic lustre.)
The metalloid posed a serious impurity challenge that had to be managed before zinc metal could be produced.
Back then, germanium circulating through the Trail operations process eventually left the system through tail slag at the lead smelter, essentially waste.
At the same time, Boateng says researchers knew that the metalloid had properties that made it valuable.
“It was, in fact, the first to be used in transistors before silicon,” he explained.
“Moreover, some of us were aware of germanium’s increasing demand as a dopant in optical fibres: enabling high speed internet and global telecom networks.”
It was also used in infrared optics, including night-vision and thermal-imaging technology for civilian and military purposes.
“One other use that was very popular in Japan was its use as a catalyst in the preparation of very clear plastic (PET), desirable in plastic water bottles,” Dr. Boateng said.
“There were also hints of how germanium could be applied to make superior chips and in substrates for solar cells.”
Its commercial worth added to the appeal.
“Most important, the price of germanium was very attractive,” Boateng said.
“Instead of cents per unit of lead and zinc, I personally liked the idea of making a relatively small amount of germanium and getting over a thousand dollars per kilo at the time.”
With demand growing and its range of applications expanding, did Cominco recognize germanium’s full potential at the time?
“Yes and no,” Dr. Boateng replied.
“Yes, because of the already attractive price as mentioned, and ‘no’ because one could not foresee all that germanium would become.”
For him, the motivation to pursue germanium recovery combined the frustration of seeing a valuable element discarded with the technical challenge of retrieving something present at fewer than 100 parts per million.
“Working at the Technical Research Centre (TRC) as it was then called, the pain of watching this valuable element discharged as waste and the challenge of making a product out of something that came in the feed at less than 100 parts per million – that combination served as motivation,” he said.
Separating and purifying materials was a central part of Boateng’s chemical engineering background, but he emphasizes that he did not work alone.
Other researchers at the Technical Research Centre contributed ideas as the team worked to increase the germanium concentration from parts per million to half a per cent, and then determine how to advance it further.
His previous experience with solvent extraction proved particularly important.
Boateng had worked extensively with the process during his master’s and doctoral studies at the University of Toronto.
The difficulty was finding a formula capable of selectively separating germanium from a solution containing an enormous range of other elements.
“The challenge was finding a recipe that would be sufficiently selective for germanium from a solution containing most of the periodic table of elements,” he said.
The breakthrough also contained an element of mystery.
“I have to confess that after discovering what worked, I did not fully understand why it worked and discovered more of unexpected coincidences,” Boateng said.
“I recognized it as clearly the finger of God,” he added.
“A small amount of a substance I did not know was there at first, made the difference.”
The key process that made the greatest difference in germanium extraction is now widely published though patents, although Boateng said some of the finer details remain proprietary to the company.
An archival article in the February 1982 edition of The Cominco Orbit captured Boateng at work during the early research period.
A photograph shows the young research engineer adjusting a level control in a mini-solvent extraction plant at the Technical Research Centre.
The article described the Trail research facility as Cominco’s “eye to the future” and explained that researchers needed both scientific knowledge and the instincts to look years ahead.
For Boateng and his colleagues, discovering a process that worked in a laboratory was only the beginning.
The next step was moving from bench-scale research to a pilot plant to prove the process could work on a larger scale.
Researchers then had to determine how the new operation could be integrated into Cominco’s existing plants without disrupting processes that had been operating for many years.
“We could be introducing this small activity and end up destroying many years-old operation,” Boateng said.
“The goal was to leave no harmful fingerprints on the existing processes.”
The challenges were financial as well as technical.
The research team had to make the business case for spending money on a germanium plant.
Boateng recalls receiving about half the capital that engineering estimates indicated would be needed.
He worked closely with a young mechanical engineer whose permission he does not have to identify publicly. Boateng refers to him simply as Gordon.
“Between Gordon and myself we made some sensible compromises to get something that would work, even if not perfectly,” he said.
Boateng’s strategy was to demonstrate the process’s value first and seek money for improvements later.
“I knew that once we made a product and generated good revenue, we could get more money to upgrade.”
Boateng had the opportunity to remain involved as the project moved from laboratory research into plant operations.
“Personally, I feel blessed to have had the opportunity to be a key part of the research to develop the process and to have the opportunity to follow it into the plant operation to help make it even better,” he said.
His responsibilities eventually extended beyond research and production to marketing the finished germanium.
“Also, to be assigned to the marketing of the product: I knew what germanium was worth and could negotiate a good price for it.”
The combination of research, plant management, marketing and business strategy gave Boateng a view of germanium from its presence as a troublesome trace element in zinc concentrate through to its sale as a high-value product.
He eventually became the inventor of numerous chemical and metallurgical processes and has 25 patents and several publications to his name.
The process for germanium production remains one of his most notable contributions.
Germanium’s strategic importance has grown significantly since Boateng’s years at the Trail smelter, particularly since about 2024.
He had expected its value to increase because he was aware of research into a variety of new uses, but even he did not anticipate the degree of importance it would attain.
“Not too surprising though, because I knew about some of the various research activities on the use of germanium.”
He once thought germanium might eventually command between USD $3,000 and USD $4,000 per kilogram (kg), but did not imagine its value could move beyond that range.
“The highest I got for a kg of contained germanium in my time was about USD $2,700,” he said.
Today, a kilogram of germanium nears USD $8,600, though prices vary depending on the region and purity.
Germanium remains one of several metals recovered through the Trail smelter’s specialized, integrated metallurgical processes.
In 21st-century terms, Teck says extracting and refining multiple metals from the same material stream makes fuller use of the resource while supporting sustainability and low-carbon, near-zero-waste production.
Those modern ambitions trace back to researchers who looked at a metallurgical impurity flowing toward the waste stream and saw something worth saving.
Boateng remains proud of his role, but repeatedly stresses that the achievement belonged to more than one person.
“While being a key part of this, the role of the many cannot be under-estimated – from bosses to subordinates – every contribution counts,” he said.
He also developed his own way of drawing those contributions together whenever he encountered a difficult problem.
“There are good ideas in many heads,” he said.
“I benefitted from forming ‘My Best Ideas Team,’ who I invited to a meeting when I needed to harvest good ideas God has planted in many heads.”
Looking back, Boateng sees scientific knowledge, collaboration, opportunity and faith all woven into the development of Teck Trail’s germanium process.
“One cannot underestimate the hand of Providence,” he shared.
“Being at the right place at the right time, and stumbling upon success without even knowing fully what one’s thoughts and actions could result in.”
More than four decades after Boateng began working at the Technical Research Centre, germanium has become one of the critical minerals at the centre of discussions about Trail Operations’ future.
For Boateng, the renewed attention is an opportunity to recognize both the foresight behind that early research in Trail and the many hands that turned a once-wasted element measured in parts per million into a globally sought-after critical mineral.
Reprint from February 1982 feature from The Cominco Orbit, “Technical Research Centre is our eye to the future”
Technical Research Centre is our eye to the future
“Thinking ahead” is the name of the game at Cominco’s well-respected Technical Research Centre.
With a staff of 48 and an annual budget of approximately $3 million, the research facility is continuing Cominco’s long-established tradition as a world leader in metallurgical research.
The people at the Technical Research Centre at Trail are noted for their scientific knowledge and skills, but they also have to be visionaries and have the instincts of a successful gambler.
To get up-to-date with what’s happening at TRC, the Orbit talked to TRC Manager H.E. “Eb” Hirsch and Assistant Manager G.M. “Frits” Swinkels.
They will tell you that the last few years have been a very exciting and satisfying time for the TRC because the modernization-expansion program at B.C. Group and the environmental challenges at many Cominco properties have used a substantial amount of technology developed at the TRC. It has been a credit to TRC’s planning in the early ’70’s and even before.
“Half the game in research is to sit down and peek into a murky future,” says Frits.
“We have to detect a problem that may be 10 or 15 years down the road, and then come up with ideas for how to handle that problem,” he added.
Eb estimates that if just one out of 10 projects the researchers pursue results in a profitable operation then the research program has more than paid for itself.
Major recent accomplishments that come to mind are the zinc pressure leaching technology, halogen leaching for the new Zinc Oxide Fume Leach Plant currently under construction at Trail, and technology for effluent treatment at various Cominco locations.
The most prominent of these was at the Greenex Mine in Greenland, where there was a problem with disposal of tailings in the fiord. The experience obtained in the solution of this problem was used again at Polaris.
According to Eb, Cominco stands in the mainstream of Canadian mining companies in metallurgical research.
He says Cominco and several other large Canadian mining companies are generally ahead of the rest of the Western world in metallurgical research. It is interesting to compare the research work of Western World companies with what goes on in Russia.
The Russians put a great emphasis on research and development and are able to marshal a huge amount of manpower and resources on a project, but they have been considerably less efficient than Western companies in achieving results corresponding to the resources they put into research.
How do they keep up with the latest news in the research world? By keeping up with technical literature, meetings and visits to other operations. Frits says there is generally good co-operation among researchers, although there is a definite point where technology is bought and sold under patents and licensing provisions.
The world-wide nature of what the TRC does is reflected by the TRC staff, which includes scientists, mostly with a background of metallurgical or chemical engineering, from Japan, India, Holland, England, Hungary, Italy, Yugoslavia.
The research work at TRC is in two categories: “corporate” and “service.”
The service research (about 40 percent of the total) is done to serve existing needs of Cominco operations (for instance, effluent treatment).
Of this service research, approximately 60 percent is at Trail and 40 percent is for other Cominco properties.
The corporate research is not necessarily related to current Cominco business.
An example of this type of research is research under way for removal of chlorine and fluorine in the zinc pressure leaching process.
The current Trail plant operation does not require this capability because of the type of feed it uses. However, the time may come when this technology would be a major asset for Cominco.
Other substantial projects in recent years at TRC have included an arsenic oxide recovery process for the Con Mine, consulting for the mills at Pine Point and Con and a variety of projects associated with the modernization-expansion program at Trail.
An operation such as Cominco’s Saskatchewan Potash operations does not require as much research work because it involves a relatively well-established technology, says Eb.
An important innovation in recent years has been the use of continuously operating mini-pilot plants. This is one way of avoiding the cost of a full-scale pilot plant while still being able to learn what you’re aiming at learning.
If you find your idea is not going to work — or will not be usable — then you have the satisfaction of knowing you haven’t spent a huge amount of money on a lost cause.
The staff at the TRC are proud of their contributions to Cominco’s productivity of today and tomorrow, and they’re also very proud of an outstanding safety record.
In 1981 they surpassed 500,000 consecutive man hours without a lost-time injury.
Cominco research … a strong tradition
Research has been a big part of Cominco’s business since the very beginning.
It had its start in the efforts of plant operators to improve their processes and solve their difficulties by careful experimentation right on the job.
The introduction of the electrolytic zinc process in 1916, however, brought with it problems too complex to be solved in this way, and the following year saw the establishment of the first research laboratory at Trail.
From that time research has had official status at Cominco.
Cominco established a world-wide reputation for research in the early 1920’s when a company team led by the late R.W. Diamond developed the ore separation technique called differential flotation which made the great Sullivan ore body at Kimberley economic to mine.
The process developed by Cominco is now used by hundreds of mines all over the world.
Cominco’s long research history is illustrated in the company’s annual reports of 1928 and 1929.
The 1928 includes a description of the fertilizer testing activity on the Prairies. The report of the following year described research as a “valuable accessory” to the company and stated that the research department would continue to grow.
Cominco’s success in developing technology for environmental control earned it international renown. The successful fuming of blast furnace slag was another great innovation.
In more recent times, you can look at Cominco’s extensive use of computers and production of electronic materials as two very important aspects of the company’s business which were spawned at the Technical Research Centre.
In 1964 Cominco’s Product Research Centre for end use research on lead and zinc opened at Sheridan Park in Toronto.
Recently, the research for electronic materials which was formerly part of the Technical Research Centre, came under the umbrella of the new Electronic Materials Division.
The Technical Research Centre has been a proud father or grandfather for a long list of Cominco enterprises. And there is a gallery of bright prospects on the horizon.