UrbanMines Company History
UrbanMines was born from profound insights into the value of “urban mining”. At its inception, the company recovered precious metals together with strategic metals such as cobalt and indium from spent catalysts, cobalt-bearing waste and indium-bearing waste. Starting out as a small-scale recycling plant, we gradually built technical capabilities covering resource regeneration, metal-powder manufacturing and metal-compound synthesis. The brand name “UrbanMines” embodies our original aspiration to drive advanced-material innovation via circular-economy principles, and underpins our industrial mission toward green manufacturing and self-sufficiency in critical materials.
April 2007
A production plant was built in Huizhou, Guangdong, focusing on recycling spent precious-metal catalysts, cobalt-alloy scraps and residual ITO (indium-tin oxide) targets. Deploying core processes including chemical displacement, reduction, extraction and separation-purification, we achieved large-scale production of precious-metal feedstocks, indium ingots and cobalt powders, and established foundational capabilities in metallurgical-chemical operations and wet-chemical synthesis.
September 2010
An operating entity was set up in Shenzhen with an international-market team formed. We began providing custom-supply of elemental-metal and powder products such as high-purity indium ingots, high-purity cobalt powder and low-oxygen niobium powder for overseas customers, launching our global service network.
May 2012
We entered into a strategic industry-university-research partnership with the materials faculty of a well-known university in Guangzhou, kicking off R&D for cobalt salts (e.g. cobalt chloride) and their oxides. A complete production line covering precipitation reaction, solid-liquid separation, cooling crystallisation and low-temperature drying was commissioned at our inland base, enabling self-reliant production of basic inorganic-salt products.
April 2014
A Hong-Kong-based corporate entity plus logistics-warehousing centre were founded to build supporting infrastructure for overseas-market development and customer service, greatly improving cross-border supply-chain responsiveness and delivery reliability.
May 2015
Through equity participation, a metal-salt processing plant was established in Chongqing for wet-refining production of high-purity cesium salts. This marked our formal entry into R&D, custom manufacturing and production of minor- and rare-metal oxides and compounds.
January 2017
We formed strategic cooperation with materials-science teams from universities in Jiangxi, focusing on extraction, separation and purification technologies for rare-earth oxides and compounds of cerium, lanthanum, neodymium, praseodymium and rubidium. High-purity single-rare-earth solutions were prepared via neutralisation precipitation, sulphide-precipitation impurity removal and ion-exchange processes. Equipment including reaction kettles, precision filters and ion-exchange columns was upgraded, completing systematic industrial deployment for rare-earth compounds.
October 2020
In-depth collaboration with university materials-science teams in Hong-Kong enabled breakthroughs in core technologies for antimony-based compounds: full-oxidation performance, colloidal stability, nucleation-and-particle-size control, and precise crystal-phase regulation. Through technology-equity joint ventures with mainland-Chinese manufacturers, industrialisation was realised. Stable production of antimony pentoxide (powder & colloidal grades), sodium meta-antimonate, sodium pyroantimonate and antimony glycolate was achieved, and a full product matrix for flame-retardant and inorganic functional materials was planned and constructed.
July 2024
An OEM custom-processing system for high-purity metal compounds including zirconium, strontium and tantalum was established. On-site technical teams supervise process parameters, quality and delivery schedules, securing stable, consistent supply across multiple high-purity compound grades.
March 2026
Following a shareholders’ resolution, core-business directions were comprehensively upgraded for high-end-manufacturing markets. Two primary product lines were internally developed: - Electronic-material precursors: Trimethylaluminum (TMA) and hexaamminecobalt(III) chloride - Optoelectronic functional materials: Indium-tin oxide (ITO) and cesium tungsten bronze (CsxWO3). This upgrade signals our deep-dive from metal-powder and compound manufacturing into frontier application fields such as thin-film deposition, transparent-conductive and optical functional materials, driving continuous value-chain advancement through technological innovation.