Events

Join us to acknowledge the research achievements and celebrate the success of our colleagues with the annual SMI Excellence Awards and End of Year Celebration. Please note: Just adding to your calendar does not register your attendance. Please use registration link.

In a first for UQ, this panel discussion is produced in partnership with ABC News 24 and will be recorded at UQ’s St Lucia campus for subsequent broadcast.
Chaired by UQ’s UNESCO Chair of Journalism and Communication, Professor Peter Greste, the program will unpack the sustainability challenges posed by mining.

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.

International Night is a longstanding tradition and way for SMI staff, students, and their families to celebrate and share their heritage with food.
Come along, enjoy the food your friends and co-workers have made, and have fun! Costumes are encouraged, and entertainment is provided for children.

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 It has been mainly superseded in the past century by technology such as magnetic separation and flotation, but remains a very important process for base metal oxides (such as tin and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.

The Complex Orebodies Program is reaching the end of its second year of operation. This Presentation Day aims to provide researchers and other interested parties with an overview of the research programs underway, along with their outcomes and forward plans.

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.

A brief overview of the iron ore market will be provided during this seminar, focusing on its nuances and the supply chain from pit to port in order to explain the driving factors behind the processing technology used for upgrading of low grade iron ore and magnetite iron ore to saleable products with the aim to identify areas for future improvement opportunities.

One simple gesture can make a world of change for the next generation. Join us for our first ever UQ Giving Day on Wednesday 23 October 2019.

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.

The Sustainable Minerals Institute’s Production Centres, the W.H. Bryan Mining & Geology Research Centre (BRC) and Julius Kruttschnitt Mineral Research Centre (JKMRC), have exciting PhD opportunities for engineering, science and geology students.

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.

Increasing complexity of ore deposits requires better prediction of comminution properties.

‘Enhanced Process Technologies’ (EPT’s) can provide genuine step change improvements to greenfield and brownfield projects. This presentation discusses EPTs, barriers to adoption and how to navigate those barriers in order to improve economic and environmental outcomes.

The seminar will provide a guided tour through a completely novel theory that can be used to generate a closed analytical solution to the physics of froth flotation, in a manner that is completely fundamental, yet robust and simple to use.

This talk will begin with two keys premises: that landscape change is an intrinsic part of mining and industrial development; and that novel ways of understanding landscapes can open up new possibilities for their future.

This presentation focuses on research developments at Monash University where drones have been combined with high performance compute and computer vision techniques, in order to remotely sense or sample our planet.

When considering safety, especially in operating mines, the reporting of incidents and the language used to describe them really matters. Natural Language Processing can now be used to classify and detect new classifications of incidents and detect previously unseen combinations of hazards and behaviours, allowing for the development of meaningful and targeted safety intervention programs.

Minerals in a Sustainable World - workshop sessions day 2 of QUEX Symposium

A study of Co-rich samples from the Eastern Mount Isa Block was undertaken to constrain the IOCG mineral system and evaluate HREE prospectivity. Although these deposits are interpreted to have had a granitic source, the element association includes metals not normally concentrated in silicic melts e.g., Co, Ni, Sc and PGE's.

The University of Queensland and the University of Exeter will host the Inaugural QUEX International Symposium: Fostering Global Sustainability and Wellbeing on Thursday 25 and Friday 26 July 2019.

The aim of the conference is to provide students with the opportunity to hone their presentation skills and interact with industry professionals.

The UQ Mining and Resources Forum aims to connect researchers working across all aspects of the industry to share ideas and develop collaboration and research projects.