WA Works

Mining services business Portable PPB is taking the world by storm with its flagship product, detectORE.

Since launching the product 18 months ago, the technology has led to a WA gold discovery and has been sold into 22 countries. Portable PPB was also named WA Innovator of the Year in 2023.

Portable PPB Managing Director Simon Bolster. Images: JTSI / Portable PPB.

detectORE enables geologists to conduct low-level gold analysis while out in the field and measure in parts per billion (PPB), whereas other field technology only records parts per million (PPM). This inspired the business’ name. 

Portable PPB Managing Director Simon Bolster says detectORE significantly cuts down exploration costs.  

“Time is what kills exploration companies,” he says. “Exploration is a slow process and costs explorers millions of dollars a year.” 

Bolster says being able to analyse samples in the field can save many months and enable various phases of work to be completed each week as the technology can return sample results in less than a day. 

“Our process enables geologists to get a far better target definition on where to drill and they can be testing rocks as they’re drilling,” he says. 

“This is especially useful for junior companies needing news flow, as it keeps the share price up and helps raise money.” 

How does detectORE work? 

detectORE was invented by CSIRO’s Dr Melvyn Lintern in 2016. Two years later Portable PPB, founded by Bolster and Peter Williams, won the exclusive global licensing rights to the patented process and they then went on to further develop and then commercialise it. 

Other commonly used field instruments that measure chemical concentrations in the field are unable to detect gold at low levels due to inferences from several elements. 

The detectORE process involves placing a field sample into a specially designed container with a chemical that dissolves gold and a concentrator to collect it. 

“Many of the chemicals that can do this are toxic and hazardous, like cyanide, but our process uses a reagent we developed that’s non-toxic, non-hazardous, environmentally friendly and 90% as effective as cyanide to dissolve gold,” Bolster says.  

Once dried, the sample is scanned on a portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF), which – due to detectORE – can read PPB.  

Struck gold in the Pilbara 

The technology has led to a gold discovery by Calidus Resources at its Pilbara Blue Spec project from only one campaign of drilling. Calidus told Bolster that using detectORE saved about eight months.  

Mineral exploration is a high-risk business, as about one in 1,000 exploration programs result in an operating mine. 

Bolster hopes detectORE will lead to speeding up the process of finding new large gold deposits in WA which could have “flow-on effects in the tens of billions of dollars to the State in terms of revenue and royalties, as well as the extra employment opportunities”. 

“We want to compress the time it takes from discovery to first pouring of gold on a new gold mine,” he says.  

“The way we can do that is eliminate the stop-start of exploration. We enable continuous exploration to take place.” 

A global success 

Portable PPB team.

The rest of the world has cottoned onto the revolutionary product, which is now exported to 22 countries. 

“While we have been focusing on WA, we also feel there is a very strong global market for detectORE,” Bolster says.  

“Africa is a great market for us because there’s very few labs there and it’s slow exploration.” 

Demand for detectORE is also strong from North America, particularly Canada, due to a short field season.  

“We have a group in the Arctic that said they went out in the field for one month less than usual because of limited funds, but they got two field seasons worth of work done,” he says. 

detectORE shows potential with other minerals 

Portable PPB is now working on applying the technology to other minerals, beginning with silver. 

“The main reason we are focusing on silver initially is because gold and silver often occur together in the ground in gold deposits,” Bolster says. 

“But the big difference is that silver is much more mobile in the weathering environment, so it travels further into the rocks.  

“Silver has a bigger footprint, so you can be detecting silver at low levels early on which could help you find gold faster.” 

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