Sustainable Minerals '21 Day 3: Innovations for the future

Wednesday June 23rd

Innovation is the key in the quest for a circular economy and sustainability, and this morning’s 12 presentations in the fascinating session Innovation for the Future were wide ranging, including talks on green flotation reagents, heap leaching, novel breakage methods, the use of solar energy, education, quantum energy and mining on the moon.

The session began with a keynote lecture from Prof. Anna Littleboy, the Research Director of Australia’s CRC TiME a new Cooperative Research Centre for Transformations in Mining Economies.

“Why mine closure should not be considered just an environmental issue” draws on two years of consultation with industry, Government and community representatives to establish an industry led cooperative research centre in Australia that considers mine closure as an agent of regional development, rather than as the end of the mining value chain. The paper presented the challenge of mine closure through the lens of systems thinking and offered a new way of thinking about the challenges to be addressed to better link mine closure to successful post mining outcomes for all stakeholders. 

Addressing these challenges requires new ways of thinking about how the operation of a mine impacts on ecosystems, livelihoods and regions long after the mine has gone – and then incorporating this new way of thinking into the decision systems that drive project valuations, operational planning, regulatory determinations, regional planning, community engagement and institutional hierarchies. The issue of mine closure affects social performance, regional impact, residual risk, mine planning, and future investment. 

Nowadays we live in a society with a steadily increasing awareness for the environment on the one hand and a high enthusiasm for new technologies, such as those described this morning, on the other hand. However, as stressed by Dr. Alexander Hutwalker, of Clausthal University of Technology, Germany, the awareness for raw materials and their role in a circular economy is rather low within the general public. This leads to two future challenges: the demand for raw materials increases while gaining the Social License to Operate for any new raw material related operation becomes harder due to environmental concerns. Despite the technical challenges within the concept of a circular economy and the question how the extraction of mineral raw materials can be sustainable at all, the low awareness for raw materials becomes a major risk for any future raw materials operation. Alexander focused on how a Mining Engineering study program can address these topics and thereby support the way to a sustainable raw material use.

Developing this further Dr. German Figueroa, a Plant Metallurgist at CSA Glencore, Australia, discussed how student placements are of vital importance for mineral processing research scholars. The activities on site and direct interaction with experienced personnel not only provide industry-ready skills but also the foundation of sustainable practices. While students benefit from the host company through skills acquisition of all kinds, the host company can benefit through research knowledge-transfer, cost efficiency, and international relationships.

In 2016, post-grad research students from the Julius Kruttschnitt Mineral Research Centre, participated on the comminution and flotation surveys in the concentrator plant in Francisco I. Madero, Peñoles, Mexico. In addition, they also had the opportunity to test their research projects at industrial scale. German described from the education point of view the main activities and challenges experienced during the process, preliminary metallurgical results, research at industry application, and concluded by describing the overall student experience, a critical part on their personal and professional formation.

A great morning of talks on innovation was continued after the lunch break by 5 papers on the use of biotechnology in sustainability, including two from South Africa on the potential of phytomining, where metals found in the rhizosphere are taken up by roots of adapted hyperaccumulator plants and concentrated into specific regions of the plant, from which they can be recovered.

There is much potential for this environmentally friendly process, and Prof. Sue Harrison, of the University of Cape Town showed that native herbaceous plant species on tailings storage facilities on the Zambian Copperbelt show phytomining potential, and Farai Masinire of the University of Pretoria discussed the phytoremediation of chromium(VI) in wastewater using Chrysopogon zizanioides (vetiver grass).

A very interesting day, and a reminder that all the abstracts are available for free viewing, and the presentations are on demand until the end of the year, so it is not too late to register.

Check out the feedback on the conference at #SustainableMinerals21.