Space Cowboys, Sulphur, and Blazing New Trails

Mention sulphur at a networking event and most people politely smile before looking for the nearest conversation.

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Mention that the sulphur in their body was forged inside an exploding star billions of years ago, and suddenly they're asking questions.

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That was exactly the point. When Sultech brought its team to Spark After Dark: Space Cowboys at TELUS Spark Science Centre inCalgary, the goal wasn't simply to talk about fertilizer. It was to prove something bigger: that science can be approachable, innovation can be entertaining, and even sulphur can capture people's imagination.

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By the end of the evening, hundreds of visitors had stopped by the Sultech booth to test their knowledge through a fast-paced trivia game, challenge the team with questions, discover surprising facts about one ofagriculture's most overlooked nutrients – and pick up a cool piece of swag.

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"Did you know sulphur used to fall from the sky?"

"Did you know the sulphur in your body came from a star?"

"Did you know Alberta sulphur is travelling to Japan, Australia, and Brazil?"

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For founder and CEO Murray MacKinnon, those conversations represent something much larger than a successful event.

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“Innovation starts with curiosity,” says MacKinnon. “People don't need a chemistry degree. They just need a reason to care. Once they understand why sulphur matters to crops, food production, and the environment, they start seeing the opportunity.”

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And that opportunity is growing. Sulphur is one of the four essential nutrients crops need, yet cleaner air has dramatically reduced the natural sulphur once deposited onto farmland, while modern, high-yield agriculture continues removing more nutrients from the soil. Around the world, sulphur deficiency is quietly becoming a bigger challenge for growers.

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At the same time, Alberta produces millions of tonnes of recovered elemental sulphur through sour gas processing. While most people see those as two separate stories, Sultech sees one.

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Using its patented micronization technology, the company transforms recovered sulphur into ultra-fine particles that become plant-available within the crop year by connecting Alberta's energy industry directly to modern agriculture through a practical circular economy solution.

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“We're fundamentally changing how people think about sulphur,” says MacKinnon. “It's no longer just a by-product. It's a high-value resource that can improve crop performance, strengthen food production, and create value across industries. And it’s important for us to make that connection accessible to everyday consumers.”

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That mindset has taken Sultech well beyond Alberta. What began as a homegrown innovation is now attracting interest from Australia,Japan, the Middle East, and other global markets, proving that a technologydeveloped to solve a local challenge can have worldwide impact.

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Perhaps that's why the Space Cowboys theme felt so fitting.Trailblazers don't follow well-worn paths, they create new ones. For MacKinnon, that has meant questioning decades-old  assumptions about sulphur, refusing to accept that ‘good enough’ was good enough, and building a technology that connects industries that traditionally operated worlds apart.

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It's a little bit science. It's a little bit Alberta entrepreneurial spirit.

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And yes, maybe it's a little bit cowboy.

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Because sometimes the biggest breakthroughs don't come from looking harder at the same problem. They come from looking at it differently.