Seminar

Tailings dam failures are unfortunately common, with recent failures having catastrophic consequences in terms of loss of life and environmental damage. David will present an overview of recent dam failures, technical causes and new methods of monitoring, failure prediction and closure practices that will reduce the frequency of tailings dams failures in the future.

Some production blast-hole drilling rigs are capable of measuring and storing various operational parameters while operating (Measuring While Drilling data-MWD). There are a number of examples from the literature where MWD data is used to predict rock properties such as lithology, strength and fractures. This study investigates the links between the MWD data acquired in laboratory and ore breakage parameters.

Gravity processing is the oldest large-scale mineral concentrating technology. It has been mainly superseded in the past century by technology such as magnetic separation and flotation, but remains a very important process for base metal oxides (such as tin and tantalum) and precious metals recovery.

Over the last decade there has been a strong move toward implementing Artificial Intelligence (AI) and in particular Machine Learning (ML) to improve the productivity of mining operations, enhance environmental and social performance and increase the health and safety of personnel. The mining industry is at the technological stage that we can develop a fully autonomous underground mine, integrate operational data for near-real-time decision making, promote the safety of people and control energy and water utilisation.

Every year, we extract 9 billion tonnes of metal ores and in the process, we create a 350billion tonne waste problem, destroy tropical habitats and carbon sinks, releasing toxic substances into the environment and emissions into the atmosphere. While metals do not have renewable substitutes, they can be recovered and recycled – that’s the good news. The bad news is, we currently do not have enough metal in the system to close the loop and we will need to inject a lot of virgin metal to provide for an additional 3 billion people this century.

Process mineralogy is typically related to detailed examinations of metallic ores and the relationship between mineralogical properties and mineral processing. However, process mineralogical techniques are widely used within other mineral sectors as well, such as on industrial minerals, although the main objectives of such investigations can be different.

Trying to improve energy efficiency and modelling the energy of size reduction is one of the most important problems we face in comminution research. But regrettably, even the very definition of “energy efficiency” is elusive. The development of better grinding devices and circuits that use less of the world’s limited energy resources requires a clearer understanding of the relationship between energy and particle size.

The Global Mineral Sands industry is predominantly focused on the production of titanium and zirconium bearing minerals such as ilmenite, rutile and zircon. However, in recent years there has been a shift in the attention of both explorers and producers to consider the minor rare earth bearing minerals of monazite and xenotime.