Welcome to the September09 edition of the CSRP Newsletter. If you wish to have anything included in the newsletter, please email Lisa Laurie at lisa.laurie@csrp.com.au
The bid for the CRC for By-product Utilisation (CBU) has been invited to Stage 2 of the CRC Program selection process. This requires us to provide an indicative project plan from each of our proposed research programs for peer review. We will then attend an interview with the selection committee in Canberra sometime around 30 November to 2 December. This is a terrific reward for a lot of hard work by a number of people. Congratulations to all those involved. Success with this bid will allow us to build on much of the work of CSRP particularly in the areas of zero waste, minor elements and sustainable development.
In other news:
The opening of the new Perth Bunbury Highway provided an opportunity to highlight some of our work and this is reported on in this newsletter.
I will be meeting with the Ash Development Association of Australia this month to discuss the work of CSRP and the proposed CBU.
A half day workshop was held at the University of Queensland on 15 September to further develop the CBU research agenda. Attending the workshop were a dozen researchers who had previously expressed interest in the CBU proposal, particularly work of Program 2 - Manufacturing valuable products from transformed feedstocks. I was pleased to see the University of New South Wales was represented by Prof Veena Sahajwalla and Dr Obada Kayali. Following the workshop, Mark Neville and Arie van Riessen travelled to Wollongong to meet with Beca Engineering, BlueScope Steel and the University of Wollongong.
A workshop will be held with the Chamber of Minerals and Energy WA on 2 November in Perth. The purpose of the workshop is to introduce the work of CSRP and the CBU, and to encourage participation in our activities to the Chamber and its members.
The CSRP annual report in well underway as is planning for the winding up of CSRP (and hopefully transition to the CBU) mid next year. Our tasks in the coming months include finalising the work of CSRP and putting our best foot forward for Stage 2 of the selection process for the CBU.
Stevan Green
CEO
We have made some major advances in recent years to develop the technology for converting mining and energy sector residues into potentially valuable construction and agricultural materials.
CSRP issued a media release on 21 September to promote two demonstration trials associated with the new Perth Bunbury Highway in Western Australia.
In the first trial, more than 2500 cubic metres of sand was extracted from bauxite residue - ReSand® - and used as road base to widen the Greenlands Road access to the new highway near Pinjarra, Western Australia.
In the second trial, a demonstration "nutrient trap" has been installed by the side of the new road. The trap collects water run-off and removes nutrients such as phosphates and nitrates, to help prevent algal blooms in the surrounding waterways.
These are just two of several exciting CSRP innovations turning mineral processing residues from Australia's mining and energy industries into useful products like concrete, construction materials (such as sand and aggregates), soil treatments and nutrient traps; all with the aim of improving ecological, societal and economic outcomes.
> Download the full media release for more information
Daniel Tuazon, a PhD student at the University of Queensland, will visit an Anglo Platinum site at Mogalakwena in South Africa to further the work on his PhD project, which aims to make sustainable development principles relevant at the site operator level.
Will Rickard, a PhD student at Curtin University of Technology, has had a good response to the "From waste to paste" media release he issued after the CRC Association conference in May. In particular, Will has been asked to appear on the New Inventors TV show. Will and his supervisor, Arie van Riessen, are working on preparing for this.
Prof Malcolm Powell (University of Queensland) attended a workshop in Helsinki to rejuvenate the International Comminution Research Association (ICRA), followed by a field trip to Sweden. He visited the famous Aitik Boliden copper mine which has a low ore grade at 0.38 percent copper, but makes up for this with the lowest production cost in the world at 80 US cents per pound of copper. The processing plant avoids unnecessary pumping, has no steel grinding media, and uses screw classifiers (low pressure feed and thus lower pumping costs) to derive their phenomenally low operating costs. With such a low energy footprint, this must also make them one of the most eco-friendly sites in the world. They are also covering over the old rock dumps with top soil and revegetating them. Aitik Boliden is certainly an example to follow in greater sustainability in mining.
Dr Jim Avraamides (CSRP) was invited to present a paper on by-products from mining wastes at the 2009 International Symposium on Mine Reclamation held in Kangwon Land in north east Korea on 24-25 September. Technical papers were in two streams: Water/Soil/Recycling and Subsidence/Restoration/Geographical Information Systems. Other countries represented were Vietnam, Indonesia, Peru, Malaysia, Mongolia, USA, UK, South Africa and Russia.
Whilst in Korea, Dr Avraamides also took the opportunity to make contact with a number of organisations and individual researchers with whom he has been dealing since 1999, including the Korea Institute for Geoscience and Mineral Resources and a Korean Chemicals Corporation alumina refinery. The Korean Chemicals Corporation is interested in collaborating with CSRP to look at options for dealing with its red mud disposal. KIGAM and CSRP have a Memorandum of Understanding and Terry Gourley (Geopolymer Alliance) was the last visitor in May 2009.
CSRP and Murdoch Extractive Metallurgy hosted forty-five Year 11 and Year 12 students from Geraldton, Western Australia, on 24 September for a half-day exploration of the mineral resource industry in Australia. The students came from Nagle Catholic College and Geraldton Grammar School and heard a keynote talk from Dr Dan Churach that gave an overview of the industry. They were then split into three groups where they participated in some basic laboratory work in mineral processing (Mr Andrew Jones), hydrometallurgy (Mr Graeme Thompson) and pyrometallurgy (Mr Ken Seymour and Dr Aleks Nikoloski).
The latest school teacher professional development workshop was held at Murdoch University on 2 October. The fourteen participating teachers came from Port Hedland and Bunbury in Western Australia to hear Dr Jim Avraamides' opening talk entitled "Extractive Metallurgy: Adding value to Australia's resources". The teachers spent the entire day doing hands-on activities in the pyrometallurgy lab with Mr Ken Seymour and Dr Aleks Nikoloski; in the mineral processing lab with Andrew Jones and Sam McDonald; and in the hydrometallurgy lab with Graeme Thompson and Sue Farr. The workshop ended with a wrap-up session facilitated by Dr Dan Churach linking workshop activities to school curriculum. Teachers and workshop facilitators ended their day with a wine and cheese social.
> Visit the Education section of our website for information on future events
If you are aware of any upcoming events that would be of interest to other CSRP members, please email the details to Lisa Laurie. Listed below are some of the upcoming events and a complete list can be found in the Events section of the website.
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 Lisa Laurie a copy of the paper and the reference for the publication. Listed below are some publications received this month and a complete list can be found on the Publications section of the website.
> Email Lisa Laurie to obtain the most recent Request to Publish form, Standard Acknowledgement form or CSRP logo
Publications
Media articles