Company Profile | UrbanMines
From Resource Recovery to Advanced Materials: Nearly Two Decades of Value-Driven Transformation
Founded in 2007, UrbanMines originated as a small-scale plant recovering strategic metals from spent precious-metal catalysts, cobalt-alloy scraps and residual ITO targets. Over nearly two decades, we have completed our strategic transformation “from a resource recycler to a definer of advanced functional materials”. Today, we are an R&D-driven global supplier covering three major segments: Metals & Basic Inorganic Raw Materials, Functional Materials & Specialty Precursors, and Rare-Earth & Rare-Element Compounds. We serve high-end-manufacturing industries including semiconductors, new-energy markets, electronic components, optical coating, flame-retardant materials and polyester catalysis.
“UrbanMines” means more than the literal concept of “urban mining”. It embodies our enduring capacity for exploration: in the early days we extracted resources from urban waste streams; today we push performance limits unlocked from the periodic table of elements.
Evolution Milestones
-2007: Our South-China base went into operation. Leveraging chemical displacement, reductive extraction, separation-purification and other core processes, we achieved large-scale production of precious metals, indium ingots and cobalt powders, building foundational capabilities for hydrometallurgy and chemical synthesis.
-2012: Established industry-university-research cooperation with the materials faculty of a Guangzhou-based university, marking our transition “from recovery to creation”.
-2015-2017: Expanded into rare-metal compounds such as high-purity cesium salts and entered the rare-earth-materials sector, completing industrial deployment for cerium-, lanthanum-, neodymium-, praseodymium- and rubidium-based rare-earth compounds.
-2020: Broke through core technologies for antimony-based functional materials and realised industrial-scale production of flame-retardant and inorganic functional materials.
-2024: Set up an OEM customisation system for high-purity metal compounds of zirconium, strontium and tantalum.
-2026: Strategic business upgrade. We focus on electronic-material precursors (Trimethylaluminum / TMA, hexaamminecobalt(III) chloride) and optoelectronic functional materials (Indium-Tin Oxide / ITO, cesium tungsten bronze （CsxWO3) , advancing deep into frontier fields including thin-film deposition, transparent-conductive and optical functional materials.
Core Product Portfolio
1. Metals & Basic Inorganic Raw Materials
Covering cobalt, cesium, hafnium, indium, antimony, strontium, tantalum, niobium, zirconium, iron and other elements. Our product lineup includes high-purity metal powders (cobalt powder, indium ingot, niobium powder), basic oxides and salts (cobalt-, cesium-, strontium-, zirconium-, tantalum-series), as well as mineral raw materials. These products apply to alloy preparation, powder metallurgy, electronic materials, chemical synthesis, ceramic manufacturing and other sectors.
2. Functional Materials & Specialty Precursors
- Thin-film-deposition & electronic-material precursors: Trimethylaluminum (TMA), hexaamminecobalt(III) chloride - Transparent-conductive & optoelectronic functional materials: Indium-Tin Oxide (ITO), cesium tungsten bronze （CsxWO3) - Flame-retardant & inorganic functional materials: colloidal / powder-grade antimony pentoxide, sodium antimonate, sodium pyroantimonate - Specialty chemicals for catalysis & polymerisation: High-efficiency antimony glycolate for polyesters
3. Rare-Earth & Rare-Element Compounds
We offer compounds of cerium, lanthanum, neodymium, praseodymium and rubidium in multiple forms: acetates, carbonates, chlorides (anhydrous grades included), fluorides, hydroxides, nitrates, oxides, oxalates and sulfates. They are widely adopted in rare-earth separation, catalysts, glass-ceramics, polishing agents, electronic chemicals, optical-material applications and more.
R&D Capabilities
UrbanMines’ core technical strength derives from long-term industry-university-research strategic partnerships with leading materials-science teams at universities in Hong Kong and mainland China. We operate a seamless workflow: laboratory-scale exploration → pilot-scale validation → commercial-scale industrialisation. University teams conduct cutting-edge fundamental research; our Technology Centre delivers process scaling-up and engineering adaptation; production bases carry out large-volume manufacturing.
This framework enables rapid commercialisation of technical achievements across niche fields: cobalt salts & oxides, rare-earth compounds, antimony-based functional materials, custom high-purity metal compounds, electronic-material precursors and optoelectronic functional materials.
Quality Control
Every batch undergoes full-process control spanning incoming raw-material inspection, in-house manufacturing and finished-goods release: - Purity control: Industrial-grade products satisfy strict impurity-limit standards; research-grade grades reach up to 99.9999 % (6N). - Customisable physical properties: Particle sizes can be precisely tuned at multiple levels down to 0.1 μm; oxygen content, morphology and other parameters are adjustable upon request. - Batch-to-batch consistency: Standardised processes and real-time on-line testing guarantee uniform product quality. - On-site quality oversight: Our technical teams work on-site with production bases to optimise manufacturing processes.
Supply Assurance
We have built a flexible, controllable manufacturing network through three partnership models: technology contribution, equity investment and deep-level OEM cooperation. Three key strengths are realised: - Capacity agility: Seamless production transition from kilogram-scale samples to ton-scale mass-production. - Supply-chain resilience: Geographically distributed facilities mitigate operational risks. - Commit-able lead-times: Resident technical teams provide end-to-end coordination with fully traceable production milestones.
Competitiveness & Future Outlook
Leveraging China’s complete industrial-chain foundation, cutting-edge R&D collaboration with Hong-Kong universities, and global service capabilities delivered by our Huizhou manufacturing base, Shenzhen head-office operation team and Hong-Kong subsidiary, we consistently create value for customers at the forefront of materials science.
Looking ahead, we will advance along three strategic directions:
* Further functional-performance development for high-purity rare-metal and rare-earth compounds, expanding their adoption in frontier applications such as solid-state batteries, precision optics and semiconductor substrates.
* Enrich our portfolio of electronic-material precursors and optoelectronic functional materials to support upgrading of semiconductor and optoelectronic industries.
* Build a green closed-loop material-circulation system, evolving our recycling heritage into sustainable practices of low-carbon manufacturing and by-product valorisation.
From Urban Mining to Future-Ready Materials. We keep exploring.
