Lasse Moilanen, CEO, BioSO4 Oy’s strength is building global distributor, sales, and logistical networks. BioSO4 board had excellent R&D knowledge, and when they put these together, they had the possibility of success in global mining.”
BioSO4 Oy offers a wide range of REACH-registered enrichment chemicals from major international manufacturers. The company’s main products are xanthates and Danafloat liquid collectors. With patented sulfur recovery methods and developed BioSO4 passive filters, form an environmentally friendly whole for nutrient recovery in line with current trends. In addition to products with high product purity, they offer product and usage information related to the use of enrichment chemicals, quality monitoring of the products offered, monitoring the environmental impact of product use, and a cost-effective door-to-door logistics service. “We have been cooperating with our customers from the beginning planned production and with our extensive global network, we are able to help select environmentally friendly and cost-effective chemical solutions for mining projects even before the production begins,” says Lasse.
The steadfast leader has been a pioneer in taking the company to new heights. Lasse’s role model has been legendary global mining reagent specialist Tommy Nordqvist.
“During his working career I had big respect to his work and after he retired, I was lucky to have him to the BioSO4 team.” The company’s strength in enrichment chemicals is its extensive product portfolio, good knowledge of the analytics and chemistry of enrichment chemicals, and their environmental impact. Together with their customers, they have solved several flotation and enrichment chemicals challenges. Long-term cooperation with the best research institutes in the field, such as the Oulu Mining School of the University of Oulu, University of Eastern Finland, and GTK, has been a significant part of the company’s growth. The company can offer extensive enrichment process development work for international mining projects with partners. “Sulphur management has been our key knowledge. I and our team has not only a long scientific tradition to develop adsorbents, but we also test open-mindedly new unusual solutions for nutrient recycling.”
The company’s sulphur management process is now commercially ready for to mining industry. “We have gotten business from 12 countries. At the moment our method is quite a unique solution,” says Lasse. “Our competitors are big global companies who offer to customers one part of our solution. We have managed to build a sustainable solution and we don´t just sell products or services. We made a combination of sulphur-based mining reagents, lower sulphur content replacement products to those and strong chemical knowledge to solve our customers’ challenges.”
Lasse explains that many customers use sulphur-based xanthates in their flotation process. A significant part of xanthates is made in China globally, and 2021 has been logistically very hard for global delivery, especially from China. “We have managed to find right composition xanthates to our customers, optimize dosage, dosage point of xanthate and replace a major part of xanthate usage with lower sulphur content liquid collectors,” elucidates Lasse. “Customers got chemical cost savings, sulphate level has been lower in tailings and processes have been worked better.”
One of the company’s most significant achievements is being chosen by Nasdaq and being presented in New York Nasdaq wall alongside winning the Productivity idea award for 2021 at Junior Chamber International Finland. “For the days to come, the company has plans to start a project in Vietnam early 2022 as the country has a lot of mining potential. Recently, Kinh Pham started as a new business development director in Vietnam to explore the company’s growth opportunities in Asia.”
According to Lasse, the company’s turnover that started commercial operations in 2018 will rise to 1.4 M Euro/year in the current financial year. The goal for 2030 is to exceed 10 Meuro/year turnover. The four-employee company is located in Kempele. There are currently exports to ten countries. The central exporting countries are Sweden, Portugal, Spain, Armenia, and Kazakhstan. “As CEO and shareholder of BioSO4 I am very proud about our team and our R&D partners. Long term R&D is made in universities and R&D centers. Together we could help our customers in many kind of challenges,” adds Lasse.
