Microwave-assisted comminution and electronic sorting technology receives $3.9 million grant

Physical Separation '22, originally scheduled for Falmouth, was held online in May and included a 2-hour panel discussion on the future of physical separation, which was brilliantly chaired by Dr. Erin Bobicki of the University of Alberta. Erin also co-authored a paper at the conference on the application of microwave imaging in sensor-based ore sorting.

So I am very pleased to see that Erin is the leader of a team from the Canada Mining Innovation Council (CMIC)’s cleantech solution, CanMicro, which has been named as the grand prize winner of the Crush It! Challenge, and has been awarded a C$5 million ($3.9 million) grant to further develop CanMicro, which combines microwave-assisted comminution and multi-sensor ore sorting technology to selectively break particles and sort waste from desired minerals, reducing crushing and grinding requirements. CMIC says the CanMicro technology can provide over 35% energy savings across several commodities.

Erin with colleague Darryel Boucher (right) and Kai Bartram of Steinert,
one of the leading sorting companies, at Physical Separation '19 in Falmouth

The Crush It! Challenge was announced in October 2018 by Natural Resources Canada (NRC) with the aim of realising an innovative breakthrough in the mining industry’s most energy-intensive and inefficient processes: crushing and grinding. The primary objectives of the challenge are to fight climate change by creating innovative technologies that reduce energy consumption and pollution, increase competitiveness by developing world-leading clean technologies, and transform the mining cycle to establish a new “future in mining”.

Semi-finalists (up to 12) received C$10,000 to help them pitch their ideas to the Challenge Jury, with up to six finalists being granted up to C$860,000 to build and test their clean technologies. The winner and innovator demonstrating the most superior energy breakthrough to crush and grind rocks was awarded the C$5 million prize to fully develop and roll out their solution.

CanMicro is the only technology to combine microwave-assisted comminution and sorting, according to CMIC. The treatment selectively heats value minerals, resulting in micro-fractures along grain boundaries that help reduce ore competency and increase mineral liberation after grinding. It also generates a thermal signature that can be used to sort ore particles so that only those containing value minerals are subjected to fine grinding.

Aside from the potential energy savings, which the CMIC team- Dr Bobicki (Technical Lead), Sepro Mineral Systems (Project Participants), Glencore Canada (Project Participants), COREM (Project Participants) and Queen's University (Subject Matter Experts) – believe could be up to 70%, this has significant environmental implications for tailings.

I am sure that we will here more of this technology at next year's Comminution '23 in Cape Town and we are also extremely pleased to see that one of the sponsors of that conference, and a regular sponsor of the comminution series, has also played a big part in the Crush It! Challenge. Starkey & Associates' SAGDesign technology was chosen to assess the energy reduction, by testing samples of the ore before and after microwave treatment, to measure the difference in SAG hardness that was caused by the internal heating of certain constituent valuable minerals when subjected to microwave treatment. 

Donna and John Starkey with Erik Spiller (left) at Comminution '18

SAGDesign technology was considered the most accurate way to measure ore hardness and the results are reported in kWh/t to grind the ore from a specified size to 80% minus 1.7 mm, in a SAG mill. A Bond ball mill work index test on the SAG ground ore is part of a SAGDesign test and is done to allow calculation of the total comminution energy needed to achieve the final size target grind for liberation of the ore values, prior to beneficiation which follows comminution in a plant. Starkey & Associates was pleased to provide assistance to Dr. Bobicki and her team, as part of its contribution to the research for better methods to save energy in comminution of mined ore, in Canada and the world.

Congratulations to all concerned on what could be a breakthrough in reducing comminution energy.

@barrywills