East Kemptville

You've used indium countless times even if you didn’t know it! It’s a key ingredient in touch screens because it conducts electricity, bonds to glass and is transparent. It is also an important part of solar panels.

Touch screens are made up of multiple layers of glass and plastic, coated with a conductor material, such as indium, that responds when contacted by another electrical conductor, like your bare finger. When you touch your screen, an electric circuit is completed at the point where your finger makes contact, changing the electrical charge at that location. Your device registers this information as a “touch event.”

Once a touch event has been registered, the screen’s receptors signal this event to the operating system, prompting a response from your device. This is the application’s interface that you experience.

Indium is just one of dozens of minerals and metals that make our electronics possible.

Indium is also used to make thin film solar cells, which absorb the sun’s radiation and begin the process of turning it into electricity.

Nova Scotia has the potential to produce indium and contribute to global supply of this amazing material.

The East Kemptville tin-indium deposit in Yarmouth County was discovered in 1979 and mining started in late 1985. The mine processed about 9100 tonnes of ore per day which made it the largest tin concentrator in the world before a collapse in time prices caused it to shut down.

Today, we refer to it as a tin-indium deposit because it has what are believed to be economically-viable amounts of indium in it, in addition to other metals like the copper and zinc.

Indium was largely useless in the late 1980s and early 1900s when the mine was last in production but today it is vital. One of the mining industry’s challenges is to respond to ever-changing demands for minerals so we have reliable, ethical supply of the materials society needs.

The East Kemptville site was reclaimed after mining stopped in 1992 but it has the potential to be mined again now that tin prices are higher. The deposit’s indium would generate additional revenue, further helping make the site economically-viable.

See the East Kemptville mine's story at https://notyourgrandfathersmining.ca/east-kemptville

Indium is used in touch screens.

The East Kemptville tin-indium mine..