What does cryogenic treatment cost?
Deep Cryogenics International prices treatment by weight, part geometry, and material — in the published gold-mine study, treatment cost roughly 10% of the part's replacement cost and returned 20–30% more wear life. Every job is quoted individually, within two business days.
Last updated: September 8, 2026
What drives the price of a treatment job?
Three factors: total weight, item geometry (how parts are packed, cross-sectional area and how thermal mass distributes), and material (the cycle recipe is customized per alloy — manganese steel, high-chrome white iron, and tool steels each get their own time-temperature profile). Total chamber time and liquid nitrogen consumption are also factors. DCI handles shipping and logistics both ways.
What's the honest way to think about ROI?
Compare the treatment cost against the full cost of a changeout — not just the part but also replacement part cost, shipping, crane and labor hours, confined-space entries, and — the number that dwarfs the others at a mine — production downtime, which is lost tons per hour times margin. DCT that costs ~10% of the actual part price but increases wear life by 20–60% pays for itself on the part alone — when counting downtime, it isn't even close! For gold mines that deliver a vertically integrated product (doré bars), the uptime production increase resulting from DCT can be directly measured by additional output and delivery of the final, finished goods — at the current sale price of gold.
In budget language: treatment is an OPEX consumables line, not a capital project. The return shows up in unit cost — maintenance cost per ton, or AISC per ounce on a gold site — and in availability; where longer liner life defers a crusher rebuild, it reaches sustaining capital too. The arithmetic is simple: a 20% life gain removes one changeout in six per year, 50% removes one in three, and the Coeur result removed one in two.
The working formula:
Worked with the published numbers: a cone-crusher application where treatment costs ~10% of part price and returns 20–30% more life (gold mine, 2024) breaks even on the part price alone at ~10% improvement — everything above that, plus every avoided downtime hour, is return.
What did real jobs cost per unit of result?
| Data point | Figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Treatment cost vs part replacement cost | ~10% | Gold mine cone-crusher study, 2024 |
| Wear-life return in that study | 20–30% | Same study |
| Best documented return | >90% (634 h vs 280–340 h) | Coeur Mining, 2025 — case study |
How do I make the case internally?
Most trials are approved by someone who never reads this site, so the reliability engineer or planner who found us has to carry it upward. The paragraph below is written to be forwarded as-is — fill in your own baseline and part price, nothing else.
Why isn't there a price list on this page?
Because geometry and alloy genuinely change the cost, and a generic table would mis-quote most real parts. What we will do: return a firm quote within two business days from a part description — type, alloy if known, rough weight or count — and tell you up front if your part is a poor candidate, in which case the honest price is zero because you shouldn't treat your part.
Does treating in volume change the economics?
Yes. The chamber is rated to 45,000 lb in a single load, and DCT is offered as a standing monthly service up to 120,000 lb/month — container lots of crusher mantles and liners for gold, copper, and quarry operations showed 20–30% wear-life improvement (2026). Batching parts into full loads is the most economical path.
- Related: How the service works · Mining & aggregates results · FAQ
Part type, alloy, rough weight — quote back within two business days.