Engineering & Mining Journal

SEP 2012

Engineering and Mining Journal - Whether the market is copper, gold, nickel, iron ore, lead/zinc, PGM, diamonds or other commodities, E&MJ takes the lead in projecting trends, following development and reporting on the most efficient operating pr

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AUSTRALIAN TECHNOLOGY make sure the industry is well linked beyond just the minerals industry into manufactur- ing and services. Almost A$15 billion a year comes from Australia's services to mining sector, so there is an enormous opportunity for us and it is a global opportunity." Assisting Explorers "If exploration is not successful in the longer term the industry will not grow," Law explained. "With this in mind we try to ensure explorers working in Australia have access to the very best precompetitive data. We work closely with Geoscience Australia and the state surveys, and have worked with them on the AuScope GRID project. This is world-leading national data sharing infrastructure that enables data right across all geological surveys to be delivered in a seamless way." Law said the most recent initiative is delivery of an ASTER (Advanced Space- borne Thermal Emission and Reflection) map. "ASTER is satellite-borne technology that enables you to map the surface of the planet and particularly to make inferences about the mineralogy of the surface. Working with Geoscience Australia and the state and territory surveys we have produced an inte- grated map of Australia that shows for the first time the broad mineralogical variations across the country. It is very important for exploration and for a range of other things, such as water management, agricultural management and the impact of the mining industry relative to other industries. "The philosophy is to get people here, make them think Australia is prospective, give them the very best data for free, pro- vide effective exploration tools and let them loose to start exploring and be suc- cessful," said Law. "As soon as we released this map, we had inquiries from other countries saying can you do this for us? It is technology we can export to other countries and we are happy to do that." The flagship is developing a technology called 'ReMoTe,' which addresses the problem of getting skilled people on mine sites for maintenance or repairs. Law said having an expert on site at the right time is a challenge because you never know when you are going to strike a problem. "We have developed this technology involving the use of a camera on a hard-hat that lets you interact through video and sound with somebody in another city or anywhere you like over the Internet," Law said. "They can actually see what you can see in front of you and they can, through a www.e-mj.com monitor on your side, point to what you should be doing. It provides a real time interaction with someone who can visualize what you are doing and can direct you to undertake the repair." Mineral Processing Technology In mineral processing, CSIRO has new tech- nology based on ore sorting. Law said it's a way of measuring on a conveyor belt the mineralogical composition of ore. "It has been the holy grail of processing for quite some time, but because of the volumes of rock passing through the big mines, we haven't been able to deploy it in a useful way. We have developed a prototype instru- ment that can analyze a section of belt in a couple of seconds and let you make a deci- sion about where [the material] goes in the process route. This will have a big impact on the amount of water and energy used in pro- cessing because you are not using those resources on waste material. "Sensors and sensor technology are going to become more important, and a big opportunity for us is the use of real-time sensing to deliver the 'digital revolution' to mining," he continued. "There are all sorts of information we should be getting there in real time and should be making deci- sions based on it. "Also in processing we are keen to come up with technologies that let us exploit big resources that we know about but for whatever reason can't be economi- cally exploited. One of the big areas for this work is nickel laterites. In Australia about two-thirds of our nickel resource is nickel laterite, but most production comes from sulphides, so sooner or later we have to make that transition. The Pacific Rim countries all have these nickel laterites which would benefit from new technology. One of the things that makes processing difficult is that they consume enormous amounts of acid when you try to leach the laterite which requires expensive capital equipment and involves high ongoing costs because that leaching must be done at a high temperature. "Instead of using sulphuric acid we are working with Sydney-based company Direct Nickel to use nitric acid rather than sul- phuric acid," said Law. "The clever thing about this technology is that you can replenish the nitric acid and don't have to keep bring in tons of new acid, which has a huge impact on operational costs and has the real potential to make some of the Australian nickel laterites competitive again. You also don't have to do it at high temperature so you don't have the big cap- ital costs of having to build the containers for high temperature and pressure leaching. "We are working closely with nickel companies in this process, which is one of the underlying principles of the flagship— we want our technology to be relevant and used by industry," he said. "As soon as we possibly can in this type of work we get industry to come on board and co-fund the research but we also try to bring in a tech- nology provider that can deliver the com- mercialized product. We can only have an impact if we work with companies to com- mercialize these technologies." Future Challenges One of the challenges for the mining indus- try in the future, according to Law, is that Australia is an expensive source of labor, and just about everything else that goes into min- ing, so for Australia to remain globally com- petitive it has to improve its productivity. "This, in turn, is a challenge for CSIRO and takes us down a route of automation and skills development so that we can maintain the fantastic infrastructure Australia has by attracting the very best people in the world and then keeping them in Australia. We have a core role to deliver those things in the future." He said the most important factor fac- ing the industry into the future is commu- nity perceptions that play into politics, and funding, and directly into the future of the industry. "CSIRO will continue to invest in Australia's minerals industry as it remains broadly supported by the community, and a valued part of the national economy. Sharing the risks and benefits of the resource busi- ness is an area in which we, as an industry, have to do better. Being a nationally funded flagship, I see that as an important role for us to play discussing the impacts of the mining industry and how we can do that bet- ter, and talking to all stakeholders. "One of our major activities is 'mineral futures' which is all about leading thinking in what technologies will make a difference in the future, how will people perceive those technologies, how do different stakeholders in the community want us to proceed with R&D; around the minerals industry and how can we link in with things like manufactur- ing, which is going through very hard times. Wouldn't it be great if we could have a man- ufacturing industry that leverages off our SEPTEMBER 2012 • E&MJ; 101

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