Crossfield, Alta. (Rural Roots Canada) – An Alberta company that developed a way to micronize sulphur is expanding its production capacity as it looks to grow markets in agriculture and beyond.
Sultech Global uses a process that micronizes sulphur in water, producing particles that can be used as plant nutrients, soil amendments and in value-added products.
The company acquired the technology from Alberta Research Council, now InnoTech Alberta, and spent two years rebuilding and adapting the equipment, but Murray MacKinnon, founder and CEO of Sultech, says the tech had humble beginnings.
“The equipment was actually in a pole barn out behind the Alberta Research Council, covered in pigeon droppings,” remembers MacKinnon.
Today, Sultech is building a new 50,000-metric-ton facility near Cochrane, Alberta, while negotiating projects in the U.S. and the Middle East, and looking at Europe as a potential new market.
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“We’re being pulled into Europe now. There are a lot of biodigesters over there,” he says. “I think that’d be a few years down the road, but I think that’s going to be a big growth industry because they seem to really be doing a lot of research there.”
MacKinnon notes that international demand is growing as countries look for alternatives to fertilizer supplies from China.
“China stopped shipping a lot of their fertilizer products – their phosphates, their sulphates, their elemental sulphurs,” he explains. “Those countries that have been affected have really come to Canada. I mean, we do make great fertilizer products here in Canada. So, they’ve all started coming to Canada saying, we need somebody to supply it to us because China closed the door.”
“They’re definitely looking for an alternative source and a good quality source, and that’s Canada right now.”
For a technology that once sat gathering dust, Sultech is now looking at a very different future, which is what excites MacKinnon.
“Right now, what excites me the most is everybody that’s thinking outside the box and finding an innovative way or a different way to do stuff. That’s probably my most fun.”
