Lithium and cream- an unlikely combination

Last month I visited Geocubed, a subsidiary company of Cornish Lithium and talked to Project Manager Richard Thompson about the pilot plant which will produce lithium chloride from geothermal waters. The intention is to extract heat from the geothermal waters to power local industries, as at the depth of the current borehole of 5.2 km the waters are at a temperature of 190C. Cornish Lithium will be drilling to more moderate depths, however, and the geothermal water will be returned once the heat and lithium have been extracted. 

Since my visit Cornish Lithium has announced that it has entered into an exclusive agreement with Rodda’s, the iconic Cornish clotted cream producer, to work together to evaluate suitable sites on land owned by Rodda’s, where geothermal lithium production and geothermal heat could be investigated.

Contrary to my posting of April 1st 2017 clotted cream is not produced from an edible mineral, klestrolite, but from cow's milk, and Rodda's clotted cream is well known internationally; anyone who has flown British Airways will be familiar with it. Cornish Lithium will be responsible for designing and drilling a small research borehole to demonstrate the viability of a commercial scale geothermal lithium and heat project. It is envisaged that Rodda’s will be able to use the resulting renewable geothermal heat to potentially decarbonise production processes at its Scorrier based creamery, near Redruth.

@barrywills

After 35 years, a new Editor-in-Chief for Minerals Engineering

As I announced in the posting of 14 February, after 35 years this will be my last year as Editor-in-Chief of Minerals Engineering and the right time to pass the mantle on to the next generation.

I am pleased that as of today the new Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Pablo Brito-Parada, of Imperial College, UK, will take up his duties and I know that the future of the journal will be in very safe hands under his guidance. He has had great experience on the journal, having been appointed Associate Editor in 2014.

Pablo is a senior lecturer at the Department of Earth Science & Engineering at Imperial College, London and is an elected member of the International Mineral Processing Council (IMPC).

As well as his main duties as Editor-in-Chief, Pablo will act as Editor of papers from MEI Conferences, which lead to Virtual Special Issues of the journal, so I will continue to work with him in this area, and we can expect to see him at future MEI events. Minerals Engineering is now an official media partner for MEI Conferences.

Pablo takes over the journal which is in a very healthy state. The 2021 Impact Factors were published last month, and Minerals Engineering leads the field of relevant journals with a record high impact factor. Below is a list of the leading journals in our field, ranked by 2021 Impact Factor:

Minerals Engineering: 5.479
Mineral Processing & Extractive Metallurgy Review: 4.287
Hydrometallurgy: 4.217
International Journal of Minerals Metallurgy & Materials: 3.850
Minerals: 2.818
Minerals and Metallurgical Processing: 1.407
Physicochemical Problems of Mineral Processing: 1.047
Canadian Metallurgical Quarterly: 1.037.

I wish Pablo and his Editorial Board and Editors every success in maintaining and developing the reputation of the journal.

@barrywills
@PBritoParada

Great news from CSM on a warm evening at the Cornish Mining Sundowner

Last night at Falmouth's Chain Locker was one of our warmest evenings ever for a sundowner, on a week where all UK temperature records were broken, and Bude reached a Cornish record of 34.2C.  It was good to see so many of our regulars, and to welcome a few new faces.

Some of the sundowner regulars.......

....and a welcome to some new faces, with CSM's Stephen Hesselbo

Most of the sundowner regulars have had involvement with Camborne School of Mines (CSM), as current or past students, or as members of staff. There was great news from CSM Head Prof Stephen Hesselbo that Anglo American has made a transformational donation to support sustainable mining research and education at CSM. The £3.5 million donation will fund a research programme combining the study of mining engineering with environmental and social sciences and include interdisciplinary and policy-related work. It will include a Professorial Chair and a cohort of post-Doctoral Fellowships.

Mark Cutifani

The ‘Mark Cutifani Anglo American Chair in Mining Innovation’ will honour the achievements of Mark Cutifani, Chief Executive of Anglo American, who retired last month after nine years.

During his time as Chief Executive Mr Cutifani led a transformation that reduced environmental incidents by 97% and led to a 92% drop in occupational health cases.

The ‘Mark Cutifani Anglo American Chair in Mining Innovation’ will reflect the ambitions set out in this sustainable mining plan and recognises the need to approach mining activity responsibly. The successful candidate will establish a research group for the future of mining with an emphasis on the proactive development of new technologies, taking into account their technical, social, environmental and governance impacts. The new Chair will promote creative and inter-disciplinary research collaborations between Anglo American, CSM researchers and educators, and the wider stakeholder communities, and will be appointed in 2023, the donation funding an expendable endowment for a 14-year period. 

Stephen Hesselbo, Maureen Atkinson, Robin Dunn, Mike Hallewell, Barbara Wills and Tony Batchelor

At last month's sundowner I was pleased to hear that Mike Hallewell had been appointed as Consulting Metallurgist for Cornish Metals and so will be leading the process development effort for the impending studies for the regeneration of the old South Crofty tin mine near Camborne. Mike has also been involved with reviewing the new development plan for restarting production at the Hemerdon tungsten and tin mine, just across the border in Devon. Formerly the ill-fated Drakelands mine, operated by Wolf Minerals, which shut down three years ago, the new owner, Tungsten West plc, has concluded a re-evaluation of the options for bringing the Hemerdon Mine back into production next year.

There is always a lot to talk about at the sundowners, and if you are in the area next month the August sundowner will be at the Chain Locker in Falmouth on Thursday 18th August, commencing at 5.30pm.

@barrywills

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

Report on Sustainable Minerals ‘22

Sustainability is such a crucial issue that MEI's Sustainable Minerals conferences are annual events for the foreseeable future. Following on last year's Sustainability '21, this year's event, also online held from July 11-13, will be followed next year by Sustainable Minerals '23, face to face in Falmouth.

This week's conference was our 7th International Symposium on Sustainable Minerals and was organised in consultation with Prof Markus Reuter and sponsored by ZEISS, Metso Outotec, Hudbay Minerals, Weir Minerals, Capstone Mining and Promet101. Our Media Partner was International Mining, and our Industry Advocates the Coalition for Eco-Efficient Comminution, the Cornwall Mining Alliance and the Critical Minerals Association.

Amanda and Jon Wills opened the conference, Amanda saying that the rapid growth of the world economy is straining the sustainable use of the Earth’s natural resources due to modern society’s extensive use of metals, materials and products. An astute and conscious application and use of metals, materials and products supported by the reuse and recycling of these materials and end-of-life products is imperative to the preservation of the Earth’s resources. 

Following is a brief report on each of the day’s presentations.

Monday July 11th

Over the three days of the conference specialists from around the world presented 28 papers, commencing on the first day with presentations highlighting the need to mine responsibly in the light of strict Environmental and Social Governance restrictions and the requirements for mine closure, mitigation of acid mine drainage and reduction of water and energy consumption.

The day commenced with a very brief keynote address from Sheri Meyerhoffer, the Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise for the Government of Canada.

Sherri provided information on responsible business conduct and how mining companies can prevent and remedy human rights issues that may result from their operations, and opened the first session of the conference on ESG, mine closure, tailings and effluents. Ten presentations from Australia, Canada, Singapore, Sweden, The Netherlands, UK and USA covered mine planning and closure, reducing liquid discharge and handling of effluents, geochemical characterisation of tailings, and management of acid mine drainage.

The afternoon session on Water and Energy was shortened at the last minute due to a no-show from Morocco, and the four presentations from Australia, Canada and The Netherlands highlighted the importance of reducing water dependency and of reducing energy consumption. 

Last week we announced a new book on dry processing, which is likely to increase in importance as water reduction becomes more important, and a presentation by conference sponsor Weir Minerals showed how the use of HPGRs in a processing circuit allows for more efficient dry comminution and the specific ways that operating a HPGR can favourably impact the water balance of a processing plant.

Tuesday July 12th

Primary mining alone will not be enough to satisfy future mineral supplies and major research efforts are being made around the world to develop methods of recycling minerals from end-of-life commodities. The second day of the conference focused solely on recycling and the quest for the circular economy.

It began with a keynote lecture from Prof. Nabil Nasr, Director of Golisano Institute for Sustainability at Rochester Institute of Technology, USA and the founding Chief Executive Officer of the REMADE Institute, formed in 2017.  Prof. Nasr currently serves as a member of the International Resource Panel of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). In addition, he has been an expert delegate with the U.S. Government in several international forums.

Prof. Nasr's presentation provided an overview of REMADE and the international technology strategies which seek to enable early stage applied research and development of key industrial platform technologies. These could dramatically reduce the embodied energy, emissions, and waste and increase material availability associated with industrial-scale materials production and processing, by eliminating and/or mitigating technical and economic barriers that prevent greater material recycling, recovery, remanufacturing and reuse.

The seven presentations which followed, from Brazil, Japan, Spain, South Africa, The Netherlands and Turkey, covered a wide range of topics. 

The demand for lithium for batteries, particularly for electric vehicles, is soaring, and two presentations dealt with the recovery of lithium from spent Li-ion batteries. 

There were also two presentations on the design and disassembly strategies to improve the recycling of metals in automobiles, as well as a presentation on industrial and urban waste recycling.

The presentation from Turkey looked at the production of precipitated calcium carbonate from marble waste and one of the presentations from South Africa's Stellenbosch University showed that recycling of gold mine tailings is a promising avenue to address the current challenges confronting a maturing gold mining industry characterised by increasingly deeper mine shafts and refractory ore bodies.

A short, but very interesting day with some fine presentations.

Wednesday July 13th

The final day was devoted to critical minerals, those that are essential to the green revolution, but whose future supply cannot be guaranteed due to scarcity and geopolitical factors. 

Sehliselo (Selo) Ndlovu is a Professor in the School of Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa and a former President of the Southern African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (SAIMM).

This morning she presented a keynote lecture showing how the gradual exhaustion of free milling resources of gold ores has made the gold industry increasingly reliant on complex, refractory gold ores and other non-traditional sources such as leaching of tailings and electronic waste. However, the extraction of gold from these sources has been associated with significant challenges due to the inability of traditional methods to deal with the complex mineralogical characteristics of such feed material and she stressed the value of mineralogical characterisation, which will be featured at MEI's next conference. 

While traditional pretreatment methods such as roasting, pressure oxidation, bio-leaching, etc. and the integration and combination of such techniques in alternative flow sheets have remained key, consideration is, however, now also being given to non-conventional techniques such as mechano-activation, cavitation and ultrasound pre-treatment processes prior to cyanidation. At the same time, the extraction of metals has also come under severe scrutiny from both regulators and the public leading to the establishment of stringent environmental laws that have also had a significant impact on the approach to gold processing. 

These, together with an increasing focus on the circular economy and the drive for responsibility in mining, have forced mining companies and researchers to look at alternative and environmental friendly reagents and to consider cleaner production and process re-engineering for sustainability in gold extraction. 

Selo's keynote was followed by three presentations from Australia, Spain and Sweden, two of these highlighting critical minerals in mine waste and tailings. Yousef Ghorbani, of Luleå University of Technology, Sweden, discussed climate gains and minerals supply sustainability in the automotive battery industry, a useful prelude to the main event of the week, a 2-hour live panel discussion "Will the production of critical minerals be sufficient to satisfy the green revolution?".

This was chaired by Jeff Townsend, the founder of the UK's Critical Minerals Association. The four panelists, from divergent backgrounds, were Dr. Anita Parbhakar-Fox, Prof. Markus Reuter, Lucy Crane and Yousef Ghorbani (see posting of 23 June for full details). A great discussion on a wide range of topics.

As with all the recent online conferences the recordings of the presentations and the panel discussion are now available on demand, so it is not too late to register and view these at your leisure.

We now look forward to seeing you face to face next year in Falmouth for Sustainable Minerals ’23, details of which will be announced shortly. Thanks again to our sponsors, and to all who took part in the conference.

@barrywills

We welcome Canadian mining company Capstone Copper to MEI Conferences

MEI is always looking to involvement with operating mining companies, so we were more than pleased when Capstone Copper decided to sponsor Sustainable Minerals '22, which started today, and also three upcoming events, Process Mineralogy '22 in November, Comminution '23 in April and Flotation '23 in November next year (details will be available soon).

During the first half of 2022, Capstone Mining merged with the privately owned Mantos Copper to form what is now Capstone Copper. Headquartered in Vancouver, Canada, Capstone is a copper-focused mining company that operates the Pinto Valley open pit copper/molybdenum mine in Arizona, USA; the Cozamin underground Copper/Silver in Zacatecas, Mexico; the Mantos Blancos open pit copper mine near Antofagasta, Chile, and the Mantoverde open pit copper mine near Copiapo, Chile. 

The Cozamin processing plant consists of conventional crushing and grinding followed by a polymetallic flotation circuit, while the three open pit mines are comprised of both oxide leach and sulfide flotation plants.  Capstone has exciting near-term and long-term growth potential, currently being in the ramp-up phase of its 10,000 tpd sulfide expansion at Mantos Blancos, and is in the construction phase of the new 30,000 tpd sulfide concentrator at Mantoverde, which will be commissioned next year.  

Capstone is also developing the Santo Domingo Copper/Iron/Cobalt project, which will consist of a 60,000 tpd copper flotation plant, magnetite recovery plant, and pyrite processing plant to recover cobalt and by-product sulfuric acid and energy from waste heat.  When complete, it will be one of the largest cobalt production facilities outside the DRC. The combination of Capstone’s growth pipeline, its geographic diversity, and the adoption of such a wide range of mineral processing technologies is technically challenging and underscores the importance of maintaining currency in the most effective new technologies and talent in our industry, and Peter Amelunxen, Vice-President of Technical Services said that is why Capstone Copper is proud to sponsor MEI Conferences.

Peter, the first MEI Young Person's Award winner, was formerly Vice-President of Technical Services at Hudbay Minerals, also a sponsor of Sustainable Minerals '22 and next year's Comminution '23 and Flotation '23, and he said of Hudbay's involvement "it has been Hudbay's pleasure to sponsor MEI and we are proud to continue supporting your mission to foster the sharing of valuable scientific and technical knowledge in the minerals industry.  As you well know, it is more imperative than ever for our industry to adopt more efficient and more environmentally and socially sustainable methods and practices, and this can only be done quickly by bringing together the best and brightest minds in our field to promote the sharing of knowledge.  For Hudbay, sponsoring MEI's mission isn't just about improving the operation of our mines and concentrators. It's about good corporate citizenship and it is perfectly aligned with our own vision and ESG principles".

Thank you Peter for your continuing support, and a special thanks to all our current sponsors.

@barrywills