September Mining Sundowner and SW England's strategic minerals hub

A fine autumn evening yesterday for the September Cornish Mining Sundowner at Falmouth's Chain Locker. Although a modest turnout, it was an interesting one, with two former CSM Associates secretaries, past and current presidents of the Camborne School of Mines Student Union, one "fresher" and Sam Wood, all the way from Buxton in Derbyshire to celebrate 50 years to the day that he began his student years at CSM. I was one of his lecturers and as far as we know only one of two still alive! 

It has been an exciting few months for critical minerals in South-West England, and particularly for the old mining districts of Cornwall and Devon. The most dramatic development came last month, when the UK National Wealth Fund announced an investment of up to £71 million in Tungsten West to help restart the Hemerdon tungsten and tin mine near Plymouth in Devon. The package includes £36 million of equity and up to £35 million of debt, while the Government will have the right to secure up to half of the mine’s annual tungsten production. With tungsten now firmly recognised as a strategic mineral, and China dominating global supply, the decision is a significant indication of how seriously the UK Government is now taking domestic mineral resources.

This is particularly interesting when viewed alongside developments further west in Cornwall. At South Crofty, near Camborne, Cornish Metals continues to advance its plans for a return to tin production, following further National Wealth Fund support announced in May. Lithium developments are also progressing, with Cornish Lithium's projects seeking to demonstrate that lithium can be extracted from the region's granites and geothermal waters using innovative, lower-impact processes. The Government's new Critical Minerals Strategy specifically highlights Cornwall's work on Direct Lithium Extraction and the potential to combine lithium recovery with geothermal energy.

The really significant change is therefore not simply that individual projects are progressing, but that Cornwall and Devon are increasingly being viewed as a strategic UK mineral province. Tin, tungsten and lithium all feature prominently in the Government's critical minerals thinking, while the region is also developing expertise in processing, recycling, geothermal energy and other parts of the supply chain. The South-West has always had the geology; what has been lacking in recent decades has been the investment and confidence to turn that geological potential into operating mines and supply chains. The events of 2026 suggest that this may finally be changing.

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Mantos Blancos NovaCell Pilot Study Receives Prestigious CEEC Medal

We are pleased to announce that a paper presented at MEI’s Flotation ’25 has received the highest recognition from the Coalition for Minerals Efficiency (CEEC), with the 2025 CEEC Technical Research Medal recognising an outstanding contribution to more efficient and sustainable minerals processing.

The award-winning paper, NovaCell Pilot Performance at Mantos Blancos: Advancing Toward Full-Scale Implementation, was authored by P. Amelunxen, B. Akerstrom and E. Jaques of Capstone Copper, Canada; A. Flores and L. Parraguez of Capstone Copper, Chile; M. Saavedra of Jord, Chile; and L. Cooper and S. Morgan of Jord, Australia. The paper was presented at Flotation ’25 by Alfonso Flores Carrillo of Capstone Copper, Chile.

The NovaCell is the latest flotation technology developed by Professor Graeme Jameson (seen left with Alfonso at Flotation '25). This innovative flotation device incorporates distinct recovery zones designed to improve the recovery of both coarse and fine particles. Australian company Jord holds the exclusive global commercialisation rights for the technology.

In late 2024, a NovaCell pilot plant was installed at Capstone Copper’s Mantos Blancos operation in Chile to process rougher tailings and validate encouraging laboratory results obtained in 2023. The pilot consistently exceeded expectations for both upgrade ratio and mass pull, providing strong evidence to support the advancement towards full-scale design and installation of a Jord NovaCell at the operation.

The CEEC Technical Research Medal is an important recognition of the collaborative work undertaken by the Capstone Copper and Jord teams and highlights the potential of NovaCell to contribute to more efficient and sustainable minerals processing. Congratulations to all the authors and everyone involved in the successful Mantos Blancos pilot programme.

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Biology’s growing role in the critical minerals revolution

For decades, advances in mineral processing have largely come through improvements in chemistry, equipment and process engineering. Now, a new frontier is emerging, one that borrows its inspiration from nature itself. If recent developments are any indication, biotechnology could become one of the most important innovations in the recovery of critical minerals.

The latest evidence comes from Battelle, whose researchers have announced a breakthrough in the selective separation of rare earth elements using engineered proteins. Their work demonstrates that specially designed calcium-binding proteins can distinguish between chemically similar rare earths, achieving impressive levels of purity and recovery in a single-stage, water-based process without the need for conventional chelating agents. It is an exciting development because separation, rather than extraction, remains one of the greatest technical and economic challenges in the rare earth supply chain.

The announcement also provides a timely backdrop to a keynote presentation at MEI’s Critical Minerals ’26, where Chun-Xia Zhao and colleagues from Adelaide University and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Enabling Eco-Efficient Beneficiation of Minerals will present a sustainable biotechnology platform for mineral recovery that shares the same underlying vision: using peptides and proteins as highly selective molecular tools for separating valuable minerals and metals.

The principle is remarkably elegant. Instead of relying on increasingly intensive chemical processes to force materials apart, these bioinspired molecules are engineered to recognise specific minerals and metal ions with exceptional affinity. Like a lock designed for a particular key, they selectively bind target materials, including rare earth elements and precious metals, while leaving others behind. By incorporating these peptides into recyclable protein systems, the Adelaide team has created a platform capable of repeated separation cycles without losing performance, while recombinant production offers a scalable and potentially cost-effective route to manufacturing the biomolecules themselves.

Perhaps most significant is the breadth of applications. The technology is not confined to primary mining operations; it has equal relevance to the rapidly expanding field of urban mining. End-of-life photovoltaic panels, permanent magnets and batteries represent increasingly valuable secondary resources, but their complex composition makes efficient recovery difficult. Highly selective biological separation offers the prospect of recovering critical materials from these products using water-based processes that avoid many of the harsh solvents associated with conventional techniques.

It would be premature to suggest that proteins are about to replace solvent extraction plants or flotation circuits. Laboratory success must still be translated into robust, high-throughput industrial processes capable of handling the complexity and variability of real ores and recycled feedstocks. Questions of stability, regeneration, process integration and economics will ultimately determine commercial success.

What is becoming increasingly clear, however, is that biology is moving from the margins of mineral processing research into the mainstream. Independent advances from organisations such as Battelle and Adelaide University suggest a broader shift in thinking: the future of critical minerals may depend not only on discovering new deposits, but on designing molecules capable of recognising the elements we need with extraordinary precision.

For an industry challenged to produce more critical minerals while reducing its environmental footprint, that represents a genuinely transformative opportunity and one of the most fascinating themes to watch at Critical Minerals ’26.

#CriticalMinerals26
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Memories of International Mineral Processing Congress 2006, Istanbul

In just over five weeks time the 32nd International Mineral Processing Congress will be held in Cape Town. The 23rd IMPC was held in Istanbul, Türkiye 20 years ago this month, from 3-8 September 2006. The location was particularly appropriate because Türkiye has a substantial and diverse mineral processing industry, including chromite, copper, lead-zinc, gold, borates, coal and iron. 

Bolstered by a huge Turkish contingent, the IMPC attracted over 900 delegates, then a record number (there were 751 at the last IMPC in USA). The conference included a strong body of research from Turkish universities and mining researchers, alongside international contributions and there were 453 presentations from 46 countries.

Three very memorable social events were held at the magnificent Dolmabahce and Beylerbeyi Palaces, the former being in the European sector of Istanbul, the latter across the Bosporus in Asia, and the farewell dinner was held at the end of the penultimate day of the conference, a magnificent affair rivalling the memorable ‘African Night’ at the previous Cape Town IMPC. In the splendid open air setting of Buyuk Klup, on the Asian side of the Bosporus, we were entertained, over an excellent 4-course meal, to live Turkish music, folk-dancing, and belly-dancing. There was a formal aspect to the evening as well, with final speeches from the organisers, and the lifetime achievement award to Prof. Heinrich Schubert. of the TU Bergakademie Freiberg, Germany.

Jon and I represented MEI, as a media partner, and some of our photos are shown below. There are many familiar faces, some sadly no longer with us, including the conference chairman, Prof. Güven Önal.

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From the rare earth supply challenge to processing solutions: Minerals Engineering and Critical Minerals ’26

A recent review in Minerals Engineering provides a timely assessment of one of the biggest challenges facing the critical minerals sector: how can countries develop secure rare earth elements (REE) supply chains in a world where production and processing remain heavily concentrated in China?

The review examines US domestic REE resources and projects, processing methods, emerging production capacity, non-traditional feedstocks and recycling. It also highlights the need for further R&D and, crucially, for the development of domestic expertise in REE separation and refining.

These are not simply US issues. They are at the heart of the global critical minerals challenge and they provide a timely introduction to the technical programme of Critical Minerals ’26, taking place in Cape Town in November.

As media partner to the conference, Minerals Engineering is particularly well placed to highlight the close relationship between the research published in its pages and the work that will be presented at the conference. The Minerals Engineering review makes an important point: identifying REE resources is only the beginning. The real challenge is developing economic and technically effective flowsheets to concentrate, extract, separate and refine the individual rare earth elements. Critical Minerals ’26 contains a whole session devoted to this challenge.

The programme begins with REE preconcentration and gangue rejection from monazite ore, followed by research into the beneficiation of yttrium and neodymium from an urban deposit. Later in the day, delegates will hear about reagent schemes for REE flotation and the optimisation of flotation from phosphogypsum.

These papers demonstrate the diversity of potential REE feedstocks. Traditional mined ores are being joined by industrial residues, urban deposits and waste materials, precisely the kind of non-traditional resources highlighted in the Minerals Engineering review.

And the programme goes further. Research from South Africa will examine REE extraction from coal fly ash and coal-derived ashes, while another paper investigates the influence of pH-redox conditions on recovering REEs and iron from discard-coal leach solutions.

The message is clear: future REE supply will not necessarily come from conventional mines alone. The review also highlights recycling as an important part of the emerging REE supply landscape. This is another area where the Critical Minerals ’26 programme provides a strong practical counterpart. On the second afternoon, delegates will hear about precipitation of REEs in materials recycling, recovery of REEs from spent computer hard disks using phosphoric acid and deep eutectic solvent leaching, and a life-cycle assessment of mixed REE oxide recovery from end-of-life NdFeB magnets.

These are particularly significant developments because NdFeB magnets contain some of the REEs that are strategically important to modern technologies. Recovering them from end-of-life products could provide a secondary source of supply while reducing dependence on primary mining. The conference therefore moves beyond the question of where can we find more REEs to the more fundamental question of how can we recover them efficiently from everything from ores to industrial wastes and discarded technologies?

Perhaps the most important connection with the Minerals Engineering review is the emphasis on processing expertise. The review points out that many countries have limited REE production capacity and relatively little expertise in REE processing. Developing alternative supply chains therefore requires more than investment in mines. It requires scientists, engineers, metallurgists and process developers capable of designing and operating the separation technologies needed to turn resources into saleable products.

The Critical Minerals ’26 programme reflects this need. Across its 39 presentations, researchers from universities, research organisations and industry will examine beneficiation, flotation, leaching, solvent extraction, ion exchange, precipitation, hydrometallurgy, recycling and process development across a wide range of critical minerals.

And REEs run like a thread through the programme. From monazite beneficiation and REE flotation from phosphogypsum, through coal-derived resources, acid mine drainage, recycling processes, hard-disk magnets and NdFeB magnet recycling, the papers demonstrate just how broad the search for future REE supply has become. The journal review sets out the strategic context: supply-chain concentration, the drive to establish alternative production, the development of domestic separation capacity and the need for R&D.

The conference programme shows that this research is already happening. It shows researchers tackling the difficult mineral processing questions that will determine whether new REE resources, conventional and unconventional, can actually contribute to secure supply.

And that is ultimately the purpose of Critical Minerals ’26: to look beyond the identification of critical mineral resources and focus on the processing and recycling technologies required to turn those resources into resilient supply chains. The conference explicitly covers processing from primary and secondary sources and recycling, including some of the most challenging materials associated with the circular economy. Critical Minerals ’26 offers an opportunity to see many of these emerging technologies first-hand and to meet the researchers and companies working to build the next generation of critical mineral supply chains.

The REE challenge identified in the pages of Minerals Engineering will be very much alive in Cape Town this November.

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Recovering silver from solar panels using flotation

Solar panels are one of the defining technologies of the energy transition. But as the first generations of large-scale photovoltaic installations reach the end of their useful lives, a new challenge is emerging: what do we do with millions of tonnes of spent panels?

Australia is particularly exposed to this question. Around one in three Australian households has rooftop solar, and the country is expected to generate around one million tonnes of solar panel waste by 2035. Although panels contain large quantities of glass and aluminium, they also contain smaller quantities of higher-value materials, including copper, silicon and silver.

Silver is used because it combines exceptionally high electrical conductivity allowing tiny quantities of a very valuable metal to be distributed across a huge number of microscopic conductive pathways.

Silver represents only a tiny fraction of the mass of a photovoltaic module. The Queensland Government's recent solar-panel recovery pilot, for example, estimated silver at just 0.003% of panel mass. Yet across millions of panels, even these small quantities add up. The Silver Institute reported photovoltaic demand of 193.5 million ounces of silver in 2023, highlighting just how substantial the solar industry's consumption of the metal has become.

However the silver is finely distributed, embedded within the metallisation of the cell and bonded into the surrounding material. Recovering it selectively is therefore a separation problem and that is precisely where mineral processing enters the picture. Recent research from the University of Newcastle's Centre for Critical Minerals and Urban Mining, together with the ARC Centre of Excellence, published in the July issue of Minerals Engineering, has demonstrated that froth flotation could provide a new route for recovering silver from end-of-life photovoltaic cells.

Traditional research into silver recovery from end-of-life photovoltaic modules has focused heavily on hydrometallurgical approaches, particularly acid leaching. Leaching can be effective, but treating the entire feed chemically creates its own challenges. Large quantities of reagent may be required, and much of that reagent is effectively being used to process material that contains little or no silver.

The University of Newcastle work applies froth flotation as an upstream selective recovery step for metallic silver from end-of-life photovoltaic cells. In laboratory-scale experiments, delaminated cells from waste solar panels were processed using conventional flotation reagents and the results were striking. In a rougher flotation test using tap water, the researchers achieved approximately 98% silver recovery, with a 32-fold upgrade. The flotation response was also rapid, with around 80% recovery achieved within the first minute and around 90% after approximately three minutes. Perhaps most importantly from a flowsheet perspective, flotation reduced the material requiring subsequent leaching to just 2.8% of the original feed.

The researchers' cleaner-stage experiment illustrates the potential. A rougher-cleaner configuration increased the upgrade to approximately 63, at around 87% silver recovery, producing a concentrate containing approximately 47 wt% Ag.

Of course, these are only batch laboratory results rather than evidence of a commercial-scale flowsheet. In a recent preprint they have reported impressive continuous steady state results processing the silicon wafer sourced from almost half a tonne of solar panels, bordering on 100% silver recovery with 83-fold upgrade to around 50 wt% Ag.

There is still more work to be done around feed preparation, liberation, circuit configuration, reagent optimisation, scale-up and economics. But the conceptual leap is significant. This is exactly the sort of development that demonstrates why the scope of flotation continues to expand.

MEI's Flotation '27 will bring together researchers and practitioners to discuss everything from fundamental reagent chemistry and bubble-particle interactions to flotation kinetics, hydrodynamics, scale-up, circuit design, modelling, control and environmental considerations. The solar-panel work touches on almost all of these themes.

These are not simply questions about recovering silver. They are questions about how the mineral-processing toolbox can be adapted to the emerging world of secondary resources.

The ARC Centre of Excellence is a significant University of Newcastle credential. The fact that Newcastle was awarded $35m to lead a national centre, alongside universities such as Queensland, Melbourne, Monash, New South Wales and Curtin, is strong evidence that the research group is regarded as a leading Australian centre in this area and the Newcastle group has always had a strong involvement with MEI's flotation conferences. Their involvement in the solar-recycling research is an interesting illustration of how expertise developed around conventional mineral processing problems can be transferred to entirely new resources.

The energy transition is creating a paradox. Technologies designed to reduce environmental impact require enormous quantities of materials. Those materials have to be mined, processed, manufactured and eventually recovered. The challenge is therefore not simply to build more solar panels, batteries, wind turbines and electric vehicles. It is to develop systems capable of recovering the materials contained within them when they reach the end of their useful lives. That is where mineral processing has a vitally important role.

Since publication of this post Flotation '27 has been re-scheduled to September 20-23. 2027

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