CASPER — DISA Technologies has sold its first commercial-scale mineral processing unit — a 100-ton-per-hour system to Lundin Mining's Eagle Mine in Michigan — marking a milestone for the Wyoming company's mineral separation technology that has been in development for years.
The system will be integrated into Eagle Mine's concentrator circuit to process nickel and copper ore, with installation scheduled for later this year. The sale represents DISA's transition from pilot testing to commercial deployment of its High-Pressure Slurry Ablation technology.
"This is what we're most excited about, because we've been in ‘grind mode’ for seven and a half years now, and we're finally getting to that stage where things are really starting to fall in line," Greyson Buckingham, DISA's co-founder and CEO, told Cowboy State Daily.
Dual Business
DISA is short for “disassociation,” said Buckingham, who explained that, "In layman's terms, we make it easier to separate target minerals that you care about."
DISA Technologies, based in the Casper area, operates two distinct businesses that use the same core technology. The mineral processing division helps mining companies extract copper, nickel, rare earths and other critical minerals from ore. The second targets environmental cleanup of abandoned uranium mines in Wyoming and beyond.
The uranium remediation market represents a substantial opportunity, with more than 15,000 sites containing waste from Cold War-era mining. The Navajo Nation alone has 523 abandoned sites where contamination has created documented health problems.
"These were all mined during the Cold War," Buckingham said. "And the low-grade uranium and everything else was just left on the surface. So, it's just been sitting there from the 1950s to the 1980s."
The goal is to make cleanups self-funding through uranium recovery.
"We're anticipating that we won't even need any taxpayer dollars to help fund the cleanup," Buckingham said. "And we can just go do it from a private sector solution."
Chase Dickinson demonstrates a control panel at DISA Technologies for co-founders John Lee, left, and Greyson Buckingham. (David Madison, Cowboy State Daily) 
Where the streams of slurry collide. (DISA Technologies) 
Casper-based DISA Technologies has made the first sale of its mineral processing system, which can handle 100 tons of ore an hour. In development for years, the proprietary system can extract minerals as well as be used to clean up abandoned uranium mines. (David Madison, Cowboy State Daily)
Regulatory Progress
DISA expects the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to issue the company a service provider license in September.
This will enable commercial uranium site cleanup, as EPA studies show DISA's process can reduce uranium contamination by up to 98% while cutting waste volume by more than 80%, according to the company. DISA hopes this approach will make cleanup economically viable at sites where traditional methods have proven cost prohibitive.
The company has recently scaled up, raising $50 million and growing from eight employees at the start of 2024 to 45. All manufacturing happens at DISA's Casper facility, with units shipped to operations in Australia, Canada, Mexico and Brazil.
"Everything's fabricated in Casper, assembled in Casper and then shipped globally," said John Lee, DISA's co-founder and chief operating officer.
Investors include Halliburton Labs and Valor Equity Partners. An $8.5 million Wyoming Energy Authority grant is projected to generate $140 million in economic impact over five years, according to the company.
Muddy Tennis Balls
DISA's technology mixes material with water to create a slurry, then forces high-pressure collisions between particles with different hardness levels.
"Imagine like a tennis ball being covered in mud and you're shooting these tennis balls at each other," Buckingham told Cowboy State Daily. "What happens when they hit? The mud breaks off, but the tennis balls stay intact. And that's what we're doing, effectively just shooting millions of particles at a time at each other."
The process aims to replace energy-intensive traditional methods that can account for up to 40% of mineral processing costs. Up to 4% of global electricity is used just to break rocks apart, and they do it very inefficiently, according to DISA.
At the company's Casper facility, a demonstration unit shows the collision process in action. Water mixed with material flows through opposing nozzles, creating visible particle collisions in a clear chamber before the processed slurry falls back into a tank.
The engineering required extensive trial and error.
"You'd be amazed. What we're doing is pretty simple, right? You're just shooting material at each other, but the slightest variation makes significant impact," Buckingham said. "The design of the nozzles, like, that's a big part of our secret sauce."
The company is now incorporating AI to optimize performance.
"We're working on machine learning, too. So, all these different sensors and how we can take it to ... predict, 'Oh, this nozzle is about to do this,'" Buckingham said, describing how the technology could become self-adjusting.
In testing, the technology has shown improvements in mineral recovery rates, though performance varies by application and site conditions. For uranium cleanup, the same process separates radioactive materials from sand and rock.
Market Timing
The company's progress continues to accelerate amid favorable market conditions.
When Cowboy State Daily profiled DISA in January 2024 during its Series A funding round, the company had eight employees. Since then, the workforce has grown more than five-fold, and the company has moved from pilot testing to commercial sales.
"I think most of it's our hard work, but part of it is luck," Lee said. "The uranium price is now quadruple what it was, and the word critical minerals — with both the Biden and Trump administrations fully supporting it."
Higher uranium prices make previously uneconomical cleanup sites potentially viable, though the economics depend on site-specific factors including contamination levels, accessibility and waste volumes.
The goal is to deploy DISA's technology in ways that allow clean up projects to pay for themselves by selling off the uranium and other valuable minerals recovered in the waste rock.
Clearing Hurdles
DISA faces typical scaling challenges for industrial technology companies.
Lead times for key components like pumps can extend up to 14 weeks, which constrains production capacity. Mining industry sales cycles are lengthy, and regulatory approvals add complexity to the uranium business.
"Everything takes longer than you expect," Buckingham said when asked about operational hurdles.
The company is working with Wyoming uranium and rare earth companies, though many of these operations remain in early development stages. DISA has prepared mobile units for uranium site cleanup and signed a memorandum of understanding with the Navajo Nation EPA for a demonstration project in 2025.
DISA hopes to add around 15 employees over the next year, with potential for faster growth if uranium remediation business materializes as expected.
For founders Buckingham and Lee, both Wyoming natives, maintaining the company's in-state presence remains a priority despite global market opportunities.
"Our dream was always to have a giant Wyoming company with 100-plus employees," Lee said. "We want to build that right here in Wyoming."
David Madison can be reached at david@cowboystatedaily.com.
