Summer and Winter Research Programs for Undergraduates

4 weeks duration, 36 hours per week. The applicant will need to be on-site at the Indooroopilly Mine Site for the duration of the project.

The effect of pyrite elemental composition and textures on electrochemical properties and flotation behaviour have been extensively studied as individual factors in single mineral studies. However, little information exists on their combined influence, interdependences, or the effect of a texture prevalence within an ore on flotation. Pyrite textures are often identified; however, their abundance is rarely quantified, particularly for complex mineralogical systems.

The research project will focus on investigating the relation between pyrite textures and their prevalence, mineralogical associations, elemental composition, and electrochemical properties on flotation performance of ore samples from Mount Isa. The project scope includes proposing a methodology for identifying and quantifying pyrite textures using image recognition analysis.

This is an experimental project which includes detailed data analysis and interpretation.

The applicants will develop a range of skills in conducting experiments and data analysis. Specifically, they will gain skills in flotation (including crushing, grinding, classification-sizing) and have an opportunity to work on image processing and data analysis.

Knowledge of any programming language, preferably Matlab or Python, is desirable but not mandatory.

At the completion of the project, the applicant will be asked to produce a report and/or an oral presentation of their project.

Associate Professor Liza Forbes
Dr Ünzile Yenial Arslan
PhD Candidate Mayra Jefferson Montoyo

4 weeks duration.  

The applicant will need to be on-site at the Indooroopilly Mine Site for the duration of the project.

BACKGROUND

Global demand for minerals and metals, particularly copper and gold, has risen and is forecast to continue rising in the decades to come. Indeed, Batterham (2017) quotes that demand in 2050 will be double that in 2015. The quality of deposits of these materials is decreasing, with them tending to be located at greater depths, be hosted in harder rock matrices, be of lower grade and of a more complex, finer grained and disseminated mineralogy. As such, the costs of processing these deposits, to enable extraction of the valuable metals, have increased and will continue to do so unless novel technologies to reduce costs are developed and deployed.

Comminution is especially challenged in the face of likely future ores. Comminution is the reduction of solid materials from one average particle size to a smaller average particle size, by crushing, grinding, cutting, vibrating, or other processes. Comminution is currently the most energy intensive process used in minerals operations. This will only increase for harder ores, with more disseminated, finer grained, complex mineralogies which will require finer grinding, and thus more energy input, to enable a subsequent separation to occur. High Voltage Pulse (HVP) technology is a selective comminution process designed to decrease the energy required to liberate valuable materials and enable their separation, such that the contained metals can then be extracted.

HVP comminution applies electrical energy (akin to a lightning bolt) directly to ore fragments to achieve selective breakage of particles containing metalliferous mineral grains. In the past 15 years, the JKMRC has conducted extensive research using HVP electrical comminution technology for the mineral industry and has become the leader in this field. Three major applications for the mining industry have been identified and explored by the research team to date:

• Pre‐weakening – HVP generates cracks/microcracks which pre‐weaken ore particles for improved downstream comminution circuit energy efficiency or higher circuit throughput in a particular comminution design;
• Pre‐concentration – This selectivity allows for early gangue rejection as well as decreasing the economic cut‐off grade, by turning waste into ore;
• Enhanced Liberation – HPV results in preferential liberation of minerals resulting in improved recovery in the downstream separation processes. HVP can potentially enable alternative separation technologies, such as coarse particle flotation, to be viable.

Research so far has shown HVP has significant potential to address many current and future mineral processing challenges. Nonetheless, barriers remain to industrial uptake of the HVP technology.  Fundamental knowledge gaps, around ore composition and amenability to HVP, and the optimum means of incorporating this technology and the benefits it provides, into mineral processing circuits exist.

High Voltage Pulse Technology is a potential game-changer in the industry and is therefore a large and exciting research initiative at the JKMRC.  The applicant will work with researchers and undertake various studies and tasks on HVP, including experimental and analysis of results, in order to obtain a better understanding of the responses of ores with different mineralogy to this novel technology.  The intern will gain valuable knowledge about the HVP process as well as learn technical and laboratory skills relevant to the mining industry.

PROJECT: Ore Amenability Assessment 

The JKMRC has conducted extensive research using High Voltage Pulse pre-treatment of mineralised ores for the mining industry.  Three major potential applications using this HVP technology have been reported – Pre-weakening, Pre-concentration and Enhanced Liberation. HVP technology therefore has the potential to improve ore processability of different mineralised ore and improve energy consumption, boost processing efficiencies and increase mineral recoveries. However, more research is required to determine how different ore types behave when treated using HVP.

To date most of the studies has been on sulphide ores but the technology has potential to be used for other commodities i.e. critical minerals, coal, iron, etc.  The objective of this Project is to test the potential of using HVP treatment on a new ore sample and quantify any benefits gained in terms of pre-concentration and pre-weakening. 

The successful applicant will be working with researchers in the HVP group on this project. It is envisaged that the applicant will gain valuable experimental and data analysis skills from the work to be undertaken.  These include:

• Exposure to the mining industry
• Training on a variety of sample preparation equipment and analysis tools
• Experience in developing and executing experimental plans and methodologies
• Exposure to HVP technology and its benefits to the mining industry
• Hands-on experience with the operation of the High Voltage Pulse equipment at the JKMRC
• Investigating the performance of HVP pre-treatment on a particular ore type
• Data collection and analysis skills

At the completion of the project, the applicant will be asked to produce a report and/or an oral presentation of their project. They will also have an opportunity to generate publications from their research work.
 

3rd-4th year students with a background in mining, minerals processing or chemical engineering are preferred, however other applicants would be considered.

4 weeks duration.  

The applicant will need to be on-site at the Indooroopilly Mine Site for the duration of the project.

Dr Karina Barbosa

Photogrammetry is an analysis method for converting overlapping photographs of objects into a 3D digital model. This project aims test the accuracy of measuring the surface profile and volume of prepared rock piles using photogrammetry analysis. The applicant will prepare small rock piles of various shapes in the laboratory and photograph these from various angles. They will also evaluate and select a suitable photogrammetry software and use it to develop a 3D model of the pile. Finally, the applicant will compare these data against measured dimensions of the pile and report their findings.

Dr Marko Hilden

Dr Susana Brito e Abreu

An overwhelming amount of knowledge related to significant risks and related interventions, policies, guidelines, etc. is published as text. Due to the large and rapidly increasing amounts of literature, it is difficult to analyse by manually or by traditional statistical analysis. 

This project seeks to overcome this barrier using advanced AI and natural language processing to 1) retrieve unstructured information and 2) extract from relevant information on related to the risk perceptions collected by the world risk poll.

It is expected that using advanced AI and natural language processing can reveal the risks that matter other information areas associated with the risks such as causes, impacts, measurement, and interventions (e.g. policies, guidelines, legislation, etc).

The results of the analysis will be presented visually utilising so-called knowledge graphs.

Professor Maureen Hasssall
Dr Nikodem Rybak