Beneficiation at source
Convert South Africa's platinum group metals into high-value chemistry here, rather than exporting refined metal and importing the products made from it.
Investors & partners
A national project with a commercial engine.
A Strategic Integrated Project under South Africa's Green Hydrogen National Programme, built on roughly 80% of the world's PGM reserves — and grounded in substantial existing investment, not a greenfield concept.
Value proposition
What Isondo set out to do.
Six commitments that shape where capital goes and how the business is built.
Closed-loop PGM lifecycle
Provide total closed-loop platinum group metal lifecycle products, including PGM recycling.
Full-portfolio chemistry
Specialty chemicals and catalyst precursors across all five PGMs, at industrial scale and electronic-grade purity.
Leadership in the hydrogen economy
Gain and maintain a leading global position in PGM-based hydrogen components — electrolyser and fuel cell catalysts, CCMs and MEAs.
Beneficiation and reindustrialisation
Drive beneficiation of South African critical minerals and the reindustrialisation that follows.
National benefit
Assist South Africa to benefit from its critical mineral endowment, not merely supply it as refined metal.
Strategic national alignment
Recognised where it counts.
Isondo holds Strategic Integrated Project designation under South Africa's Green Hydrogen National Programme — a programme attracting over R800 billion in commitments across roughly 20 projects targeting commissioning by 2027, with Isondo's facility formally listed among its SIP-designated projects.
The initiative has secured support through South African government industrial development and innovation funding mechanisms, underscoring its national strategic significance.
- Critical Minerals and Metals Strategy — designates PGMs as high-criticality minerals and places in-country beneficiation at the centre of industrial policy
- Green Hydrogen Commercialisation Strategy — the national framework Isondo's SIP designation sits under
- Just Energy Transition — industrial capability and skills in a historically disadvantaged corridor
- Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act (MPRDA) — beneficiation provisions mandating downstream PGM chemistry be developed domestically
Licences, awards & recognition
The paperwork behind the plant.
Operating a precious metals facility is a licensed activity. These are the approvals, accreditations and recognitions Isondo holds.
PGM regulatory licence
Licensed to handle and process platinum group metals.
Strategic Integrated Project
Designated under South Africa's Green Hydrogen National Programme, listed among its SIP projects.
Air emissions licence
Licensed emissions for the manufacturing operation.
NEMA compliance
Operating under the National Environmental Management Act.
Presidential Investment Conference
Endorsed at the South African Presidential Investment Conference, 2022.
SDG and ESG compliance
Aligned to sustainable development and ESG frameworks.
Women in Hydrogen
Participation in advancing women across the hydrogen sector.
SETA accredited training
Accredited to train the technical skills the sector needs.
Why it is a first
Three interlocked processes, one site.
Isondo is the first facility in sub-Saharan Africa to integrate, at pilot-commercial scale, three processes that are normally separated by continents.
PGM-to-specialty-chemical conversion
Refined metal converted into the high-purity compounds and catalyst precursors that industry actually buys.
Electrolyser and fuel cell catalyst manufacturing
PEM catalysts, catalyst-coated membranes and MEAs, produced in cleanroom conditions to automotive standards.
Closed-loop hydrometallurgical recycling
Recovery of spent catalysts and end-of-life MEAs, returning the metal to the front of the chain rather than to export.
~1.6 Mt
CO₂ projected to be avoided annually at full production, through circular PGM recovery and domestic catalyst supply
300+
Skilled jobs the facility is projected to create, as stated at the African Green Hydrogen Summit launch, June 2025
R800bn
Commitments attracted by the Green Hydrogen National Programme, which lists Isondo among its SIP-designated projects
The model is designed to be replicable: validated process data and open reporting are intended to let Namibia, Zimbabwe and other PGM-adjacent SADC economies follow the same route.
Sustainability
Ten Sustainable Development Goals, addressed by the business model itself.
Through circular PGM utilisation and advanced manufacturing, Isondo contributes to sustainable industrial development — not as a corporate social investment line item, but as a direct consequence of what the plant does.
Beneficiating locally creates skilled jobs where the resource is. Recycling extends the life of scarce critical minerals. Supplying hydrogen components displaces fossil fuel at the point of use.
SETA-accredited training and the graduate programme build the technical skills the sector needs. Majority black ownership and Women in Hydrogen address who benefits from those skills. And none of it happens alone — the plant exists because of partnerships across government, industry and international development finance.
- SDG 1 — No poverty
- SDG 4 — Quality education
- SDG 5 — Gender equity
- SDG 7 — Affordable and clean energy
- SDG 8 — Decent work and economic growth
- SDG 9 — Industry, innovation and infrastructure
- SDG 10 — Reduced inequalities
- SDG 12 — Responsible consumption and production
- SDG 13 — Climate action
- SDG 17 — Partnerships for the goals
The partnership proposition
What a partner actually gets.
Isondo offers technology manufacturers, catalyst houses, refiners and offtake buyers a structured route to secure, beneficiated PGM chemical and catalyst-precursor supply from the world's richest resource base.
| Security of supply at source | Direct access to platinum, palladium, rhodium, ruthenium and iridium chemistry from the dominant global reserve base — roughly 80% of world PGM reserves — reducing dependence on concentrated foreign processors. |
|---|---|
| Policy alignment | Satisfies South Africa's CMMSSA beneficiation priorities and MPRDA value-addition mandates, de-risking offtake of South African PGMs. |
| Full-portfolio capability | Specialty chemicals and catalyst precursors across all five PGMs, plus recovery and refining — a single partner across the value chain. |
| De-risked execution | A constructed, SIP-designated facility with cleanroom capability and substantial capital already deployed. The recycling and refining stage is further de-risked by SuperLig® MRT™, commercially proven in PGM refining since the mid-1990s. This is not a greenfield concept. |
| Scalable engagement | From precursor offtake and joint qualification, through technology co-development, to equity participation. |
A facility tour and technical briefing can be arranged at short notice.
The investment case
Why this, and why here.
Next to the resource
South Africa holds the majority of the world's platinum group metal reserves, classified globally as critical to clean energy. The plant sits alongside them, inside a Special Economic Zone with an established incentive regime.
Vertically integrated
Chemistry, catalyst, ink, coated membrane, assembly, testing, recycling and refining under one roof. Margin is captured at every step rather than handed to a chain of intermediaries.
Sector-agnostic resilience
The commercial base does not depend on any single end market. The same chemistry serves autocatalysts, petrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, glass, green hydrogen and semiconductors — mature sectors generating revenue today, and the fastest-growing demand vectors alongside them.
Growth and scale-up
Isondo is raising capital to scale manufacturing, accelerate technology deployment and expand the integrated PGM-to-hydrogen platform. Current round details, financial models and the data room are shared with qualified investors under NDA.
Partnership, not only capital
We also work with electrolyser and fuel cell OEMs on qualification programmes, with fleet operators on hydrogen deployment, with chemical companies on PGM supply, and with development finance institutions on industrialisation mandates.
Let's have the detailed conversation.
Tell us who you are and what you are assessing, and we will arrange the right people, the right documents and a visit to the plant.