MuonVision

Muon Vision is a technology company that specializes in developing advanced nuclear imaging sensors for measuring bulk density of geophysical assets. The company's core offering is a platform X-ray technology capable of measuring bulk densities and monitoring density changes over vast scales, with soil penetration of up to 100 meters. This technology utilizes atmospheric muons, which are subatomic particles generated from cosmic rays, as a natural, free, and safe source of radiation to create density maps of underground assets.

The company's sensors are uniquely designed to be buried under the object under study, creating no interference while detecting fluid migration in pore spaces over time. This allows for continuous, near real-time measurements that form the basis of an advanced digitalization layer for monitoring asset performance and controlling issues such as metal recovery or slope stability. Muon Vision's measurements provide time-lapse information every few days to few weeks, continuously, over an asset's entire life. The data can be represented as 2D maps, similar to giant medical X-rays, or 3D full asset tomographies, akin to CT scans.

Muon Vision's integrated system consists of hardware (muon detecting sensors), software (a control panel showing near real-time density maps), and a data cloud (an edge-to-cloud digitalization platform). This technology is particularly valuable for the mining industry, as it allows for non-invasive, long-term monitoring of high-value assets such as leaching heaps, ore bodies, tailing storage facilities, and dams. In September 2022, Muon Vision was awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant of USD 978,286 to conduct research and development work on increasing the safety and yield of mine operations for critical metals.