CSRP Newsletter, October 2006

Welcome to the October 2006 edition of the CSRP Newsletter. If you wish to have anything included in the newsletter, please e-mail Kelly Dwyer at kelly.dwyer@csrp.com.au

• DEST 3rd Review
• AGM
• Minerals Sector Industry Roundtable
• Participants' Forum
• Sustainability Alliance Workshop with Main Roads WA
• Congratulations
• Conferences
• New Publications

DEST Third Year Review

The review of CSRP by the Independent Panel has now been completed.  The panel met with well over 50  CSRP researchers and industry people and visited many  CSRP -related sites during the week, including HQ, Curtin University, Alcoa Kwinana, SMI and JKMRC at the University of Queensland, CSIRO and Rio Tinto in Melbourne.  It was a significant effort to organise such a tour of CSRP and its members in the various research nodes and the panel was extremely impressed.  Congratulations and a very big thank you to all those involved.

The Review Panel's report will be discussed at the December Board and any recommendations will be considered.  CSRP Participants will be advised of any proposed changes as a result of those recommendations as soon as possible.

A brief overview of topics covered by the Panel is as follows

AGM

A reminder that this year’s AGM will be held on 5 th December, 2006 in Melbourne . Further details will be sent shortly or contact Lisa Laurie (lisa.laurie@csrp.com.au).

The Minerals Sector Industry Roundtable

The Minerals Sector Industry Roundtable was held on 2 nd November in Melbourne . The half-day roundtable provided an opportunity for the Minerals Sector to discuss and share topics and issues on sustainability. Keynote speaker, Professor Stephen Dovers, ANU, presented a view of sustainability from outside the Minerals sectors. Highlights of CSRP ’s successes were also presented along with learnings from industry and elsewhere.

Finally a panel discussion was held on “What makes sustainable mineral processing different to business as usual.” Panel members, with background in the research and industry arenas, presented their views before taking questions from the audience.

The roundtable proved extremely successful with people attending from a wide variety of research, industry and government organizations. The discussions were insightful and provided those who attended with much thought on the challenges facing the Minerals Processing Industry on how we come to terms with sustainability, what it is and how we might achieve it.

Participants’ Forum

The purpose of the Participant’s Forum is to provide a forum for consultation among the CSRP Participants and is chaired by the ISC Chairman, Philip Bangerter. An update of CSRP ’s activities was given followed by an opportunity for participants to present their views and open discussion.  Seventeen people attended representing the majority of our Participants.  Attendees agreed that the format was appropriate and they appreciated having a forum to express their views about CSRP and would encourage a greater sense of what it means to belong to CSRP .

Sustainability Alliance Workshop with Main Roads WA

Dr Jim Avraamides and Dr Dan Churach attended a workshop on 11 th October aimed at creating strategic alliances and sustainability demonstration projects on the New Perth to Bunbury Highway . The Southern Gateway Alliance is looking at developing partnerships that integrates ideas from many different, apparently unrelated disciplines, to provide practical sustainability projects in the development of the new highway. Sustainability Development Project (SDP) ideas are currently being looked at and possible SDPs from CSRP include various uses of geopolymer.

Congratulations

Congratulations to Nigel Chen-Tan , one of our PhD students. Nigel won “Best Student Presentation" at the recent joint conference of the Australian X-ray Analytical Association (AXAA) (WA Branch) and WA SEM conference.

Conferences

• Material, Minerals and Metal Ecology 2006 (MMME06), Cape Town, South Africa, 14th-15th November 2006
  Details are available at www.min-eng.com/mmme06/
• Water In Mining 2006 "Multiple Values of Water", Brisbane, Australia, 14th-16th November 2006
  Call for papers information and other details are available at www.ausimm.com
• 5th International Conference on CFD in the Minerals and Process Industries, Melbourne, Australia, 13th-15th December 2006
  Details are available at  www.cfd.com.au/cfdconf/
• World Conference on Science and Technology Education, Perth, Australia, 8th-12th July 2007
  Call for papers information and further details are available at www.worldste2007.asn.au
• World Gold 2007, Cairns, Australia, 22nd-24th October 2007
  Details are available at www.ausimm.com/gold2007 (submission for abstracts due 30th October 2006)

If you are aware of any upcoming conferences that would be of interest to other CSRP members, please e-mail the details to Kelly Dwyer. Links to these conferences (where available) will be published in the newsletter each month.

New Publications

It would be wonderful to keep our publications lists up to date. If you have anything that has been published as part of CSRP (including conference presentations), please send Kelly Dwyer a copy of or the reference for the publication. Listed below are publications received this month and a complete list can be found in the 2006 Publications section.

• Bossilkov, A (2006) “Regional Eco-Efficiency Opportunity assessment Methodology – trial application for Kwinana and Gladstone” CSRP Report (Confidential) October 2006
• Chen, C, Zhang, L, Wright, L and Jahanshahi, S (2006) “Thermodynamic Modelling of Minor Elements in Copper Smelting Processes” Proceedings of Sohn International Symposium on Advanced Processing of Metals and Materials, San Diego , CA , USA , 27-31 August 2006
• Chen-Tan, NW, Williams, RG, Southam , DC , Lowe, JL, Hart, RD, van Riessen, A and Wright, K (2006) “ Characterisation of Class F fly ashes for alkali-activated aluminosilicate polymers: what’s good and what’s not?”16 th Internationale Baustofftagung, Bauhaus-Universität, Weimar , Germany , 20 – 23 September 2006.
• Chen-Tan, N, Hart, R and van Riessen, A (2006) “Studies of local fly ash for geopolymer production” Proceedings of the 2006 Joint AXAA(WA) and WASE M Conference, September 2006, Margaret River, WA. 
• Corder, G, and Bossilkov, A, (2006) Brief Report on Potential Synergy Opportunities for the Wagga Wagga Industrial Region, Centre for Sustainable Resource Processing, Perth , WA
• Gourley, JT, and Southam , DC (2006) “ Geopolymers in the precast industry” 26 th Cement and Concrete Science Conference, Institute of Materials , Minerals and Mining, Sheffield , UK , 11 – 12 September 2006.
• Johnston, M, Jahanshahi, S, and Lincoln, F (2006) “Equilibrium Distribution of Selenium and Tellurium Between Calcium Ferrite Slag and Alloys” Sohn International Symposium on Advanced Processing of Metals and Materials, San Diego, CA, USA, 27-31 August 2006
• Ly, L, Vance, ER, Perera, DS, Aly, Z and Olufson, K (2006) “Leaching of geopolymers in deionised water,” Advances in Materials and Materials Processing Journal, 8 (2006) 236-247.
• Neville, M et al (2006) “Mining technology Services: Australia Leading the World – Report to the Minister for Industry tourism and Resources” March 2006
• Perera, DS (2006) “Geopolymers: Low energy and environmentally sound materials,” Proceedings of the First International Congress on Ceramics, Toronto , Canada , June 25- 30, 2006. (CD-ROM in preparation) (Invited).
• Perera, DS, Vance, ER, Kiyama, S, Aly, Z and Yee, P (2006) “Development of geopolymers as candidate materials for low/intermediate level highly alkaline nuclear waste,” 15 th Pacific Basin Nuclear Conference , 15-20 October, 2006, Sydney , Australia .
• Rowles, MR and O'Connor, BH (2006) “Understanding Aluminosilicate geopolymer: The Need to use an Armoury of Characterisation Techniquies” Proceedings of the 2006 Joint AXAA(WA) and WASE M Conference, September 2006, Margaret River, WA.
• Southam DC and Lowe, JL (2006) “ Geopolymers: Today’s waste – tomorrow’s building materials” Presentation to the Institute of Materials Engineers Australia , Western Australian Branch, August 2006
• Southam, DC, Lowe, JL, Hart, RD and Wright, K (2006) “ Maximising aluminosilicate wastes in the production of geopolymer cements and concretes: a scientific approach” 26 th Cement and Concrete Science Conference, Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining, Sheffield, UK, 11 – 12 September 2006.
• Swetman, TE, Cooling, D, van Beers, D (2006) “Regional Synergies in the Kwinana Industrial Area: Lessons Learnt and the Way Forward” Proceedings of Waste and Recycling Conference, 19-22 September, Fremantle , WA , Australia .
• Van Beers, D (2006) “Capturing Regional Synergies in the Kwinana Industrial Area – 2006 Status Report” Centre for Sustainable Resource Processing, Perth, WA, Australia.
• van Berkel, R (2006) “Eco-efficiency in the Australian minerals Processing Sector” Journal of Cleaner Production” Accepted 21 June 2006
• Vance, ER, Blackford, MG, Hanna, JV, Aly, Z and Perera, DS (2006) “Geopolymers for low-level waste immobilization,” 108 th Annual Meeting of the American Ceramic Society Combined with MS&T’06, October 15-19 2006, Cincinnati, USA.
• Walls, PA (2006) “Optimising the Processing of Geopolymer Cements,” 26 th Conference on Cement and Concrete Science, 11-12 September 2006, Sheffield , UK .
• Williams, R (2006) “Charactersation of starting materials of fly ash based geopolymers” Proceedings of the 2006 Joint AXAA(WA) and WASE M Conference. September 2006, Margaret River , WA.