IBC Press Announcements

International Precious Metals Institute

Announces 2008 Award Winner

Steven R. Izatt, a graduate of Brigham Young University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is President and CEO of IBC Advanced Technologies, Inc., American Fork, Utah.   Mr. Izatt serves on the Board of Directors of IPMI.  IBC is a Patron Member of the International Precious Metals Institute .

IBC, under Steve’s direction, has been an innovator in developing, testing and commercializing new highly selective separation products to meet the needs of companies involved in the production and uses of precious metals of high purity. The IBC developments are an outgrowth of earlier internationally recognized work on molecular recognition carried out at Brigham Young. The significance and impact of Steve’s work can be seen through the success of IBC Advanced Technologies in developing and marketing highly selective products based on the concepts of molecular recognition technology (MRT). He has led IBC in taking academic MRT and developing large scale operating systems that compete effectively in the precious metals market.  MRT products are effective either in large scale industrial separations or small scale analytical determinations. Functioning industrial units based on MRT offer cost and space savings, simplified procedures resulting in reduced metal losses and reduced processing times. These units also offer environmental advantages over alternative technologies. Through Steve’s leadership, MRT has been adopted by a number of precious metal refineries and his efforts have made a significant impact on how precious metals are currently refined, separated and purified.

The commercial application of this selective separations technology points the direction in which separations and purification technologies should go in the twenty first century. The importance of MRT has not gone without notice. Three of its pioneers were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1987 and two others were recognized in 1996 by the American Chemical Society with a National Award in Separations Science and Technology.

Steve’s interest in precious metals and catalysis began as a high school student when he competed with an award-winning project on catalysis in the International Science and Engineering Fair. While at student at BYU he was lead author on an article based on his experimental work that demonstrated that calixarene type macrocycles could selectively separate cesium ions from other alkali metal ions. This paper was one of the first to demonstrate the ability of calixarenes to interact selectively with metal ions. This led Steve to the field of separation science. Steve’s success at IBC relies on his unique ability to combine technical capabilities with managerial competence and entrepreneurial drive to identify and meet market needs by achieving economically desirable outcomes.

IBC’s products are being used commercially for precious metal separations and purifications at many locations all over the globe. Some examples of the areas in which IBC’s separations technologies are involved include:  refining of platinum group metals and gold, environmentally friendly recovery of precious metals from low grade resources such as spent catalysts, efficient and sensitive detection and analysis of precious metals, and purification of Pd-103 for brachytherapy.

Steve Izatt has distinguished himself as a leader in the precious metals industry over the past two decades by successfully managing the process of company creation and growth based on commercializing an innovative technology that provides substantial economic and technical value to a wide array of end user markets. He has a long and impressive role in transferring new separations technology based on MRT from the laboratory to successful commercial application. His efforts have resulted in significant quantities of the world’s platinum group metals being separated and purified by MRT processes. These achievements point the way to improvement in efficiency in precious metal separations.

He has authored or co-authored over fifty publications and presentations.  Steve has presented his work at numerous IPMI conferences and seminars.

Avecia Signs Strategic Alliance with IBC in new Chiral Technology
April, 2001:
Avecia has announced that it is to partner with IBC Advanced Technologies
Puragen Division in the further extension of its portfolio of chiral technologies.

(Read Entire HTML Press Release)

Advanced Technology Program
October, 1998:
Efficient Low-Cost Manufacture of Oligonucleotides
Using Non-Chromatographic Purification
(PDF: 12k)

Advanced Technology Program
July 1995:
Non-Chromatographic Enantiomer Separation
and Purification with High Separation Factors
(PDF: 20k)

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