The first full day at International Biohydrometallurgy Symposium, IBS 2022

Amanda reports on November 21st, the first full day at IBS 2022 in Perth:

Today began with a keynote presentation from Sabrina Hedrich (TU Bergakadamie Freiberg, Germany) on "Recent advances and challenges in mineral bioleaching".

Sabrina was followed by a plenary session, which began with  Frank Roberto (Newmont, USA) presenting "The long path to deployment of a commercial bioleach (biomining) process", an insight into the process of developing research into a commercial project, using the Carlin Refractory Leach Project and the Verde Bioleach Demonstration Facility as examples.

Next up was Jan Van Niekerk (Metso Outotec, South Africa) with "Techno-economic evaluation of bioprocesses for gold mining", who presented via video.

Following Jan, Cecilia Demergasso (Universidad Católica del Norte, Chile) presented "Copper bioleaching process scenarios for the Chilean copper industry".

And then it was time for the group photo, coffee and networking. I was pleased to meet and chat to John O'Callaghan of Newcrest Mining, Australia (pictured below with Sarah Fardy from Merck, who are exhibiting.

After coffee, the presentations were split into parallel sessions: Session 1A was on Bioleaching of Metals from Low Grade Ores and Concentrates, whilst Session 1B was on Biomining Microbiology, Molecular Biology and  Synthetic Biology.

The full programme can be viewed here, and photos of the plenary presentations are in the conference album.

After a busy morning, we stopped for lunch and then had 1.5 hours to view the posters and the small exhibition consisting of Merck and John Morris Group, with Cemvita Factory exhibiting online only.

Sue Harrison (University of Cape Town, South Africa) with Karen Hudson-Edwards (University of Exeter, UK)
and Elizabeth Watkin (Curtin University, Australia)

Clint Bowker (Bureau Veritas, Australia)
with Chris Bryan (BRGM, France)

Left: Naoko Okibe (Kyushu University, Japan) with Amanda and right:
Himel Nahreen Khaleque (CSIRO, Australia) and Melissa Corbett (Curtin University, Australia)

Post-lunch poster session

Then it was back to the parallel oral presentations. Session 2A was on Biotechnical Pre-treatment of Ores and Concentrates, and Session 2B dealt with Bioleaching of Metals from Low Grade Ores and Concentrates.

Ending at 5pm, Day 1 was a packed day of interesting talks, ending with a great Australian sunset. I'm looking forward to more tomorrow!