Enhancing Direct Cu Recovery through Increased Gas Processing Understanding. This project aims to investigate mechanisms of copper loss during smelting and find new ways to reduce the loss. Smelting, which produces copper matte product and slag tailings, is an important step of the copper-making process from copper sulphides. The loss of copper to slag can be as high as 12 per cent. The project aims to create new knowledge about copper loss by matte droplets floated with gas bubbles generated by ....Enhancing Direct Cu Recovery through Increased Gas Processing Understanding. This project aims to investigate mechanisms of copper loss during smelting and find new ways to reduce the loss. Smelting, which produces copper matte product and slag tailings, is an important step of the copper-making process from copper sulphides. The loss of copper to slag can be as high as 12 per cent. The project aims to create new knowledge about copper loss by matte droplets floated with gas bubbles generated by chemical reactions to the slag phase. The outcomes are intended to enable copper smelters to maximise direct copper recovery, reduce copper production costs and increase the productivity of the smelting process.Read moreRead less
Sustainable copper metallurgy and recycling – saving energy and resources. This project aims to develop new, powerful and sophisticated, computer-based models that can reliably predict the results of chemical reactions in complex, high temperature metal production processes. This project expects to use these models, initially applied to copper smelting systems, to enable the improved recycling of other valuable metals. These models should be able to be applied to a wide range of technologies use ....Sustainable copper metallurgy and recycling – saving energy and resources. This project aims to develop new, powerful and sophisticated, computer-based models that can reliably predict the results of chemical reactions in complex, high temperature metal production processes. This project expects to use these models, initially applied to copper smelting systems, to enable the improved recycling of other valuable metals. These models should be able to be applied to a wide range of technologies used in the metallurgical industry as most of the world’s metals are produced by these pyrometallurgical processes. This should provide significant benefits such as substantial improvements in productivity and process efficiencies, whilst at the same time delivering energy savings and improved use of valuable metal resources.Read moreRead less
Creating wealth from new resources - High temperature extraction of metals from complex copper ores and recycled materials. Most of the world’s copper is produced using high temperature chemical processing (smelting). Both primary ores and recycled raw materials contain valuable elements and also potentially harmful impurity elements. To unlock and utilise current and new resources, and also minimise the environmental impacts the industry has identified the need for new fundamental scientific da ....Creating wealth from new resources - High temperature extraction of metals from complex copper ores and recycled materials. Most of the world’s copper is produced using high temperature chemical processing (smelting). Both primary ores and recycled raw materials contain valuable elements and also potentially harmful impurity elements. To unlock and utilise current and new resources, and also minimise the environmental impacts the industry has identified the need for new fundamental scientific data that describe the chemical behaviour of impurity elements in these systems. The project aims to then use the data to develop powerful computer-based thermodynamic models that can predict the products of complex industrial processes. These sophisticated tools are intended to then be used to improve the performance of existing industrial operations and assist in the development of new process designs.Read moreRead less
Rapid approximate imaging of electromagnetic data acquired using multichannel distributed acquisition systems. This project will investigate techniques for rapid, multidimensiuonal imaging of electromagnetic data acquired using modern multichannel distributed acquisition systems. This research will provide high-resolution images of buried ore deposits at greater depths than is possible using current instruments and processing techniques.
Finding Porphyry Copper with zircon trace elements & hyperspectral display. Copper mine discovery rates lag behind world needs. One way to find copper in the World’s Ring of Fire is to measure compositions of zircons which are durable minerals concentrated in stream sands and spreadout long distances below a deposit. 100s of zircon from a cup of sand constitute a sample. Zircon chemical features that indicate possible mines are mostly understood, but nature is complicated. Beyond the 26 channel ....Finding Porphyry Copper with zircon trace elements & hyperspectral display. Copper mine discovery rates lag behind world needs. One way to find copper in the World’s Ring of Fire is to measure compositions of zircons which are durable minerals concentrated in stream sands and spreadout long distances below a deposit. 100s of zircon from a cup of sand constitute a sample. Zircon chemical features that indicate possible mines are mostly understood, but nature is complicated. Beyond the 26 channels of chemical data for each grain in the 10,000s of analyses, there are 7 layers of lab imaging data that are not carried along in a convenient way. Geologists need smart computer systems to find useful relationships among the 33 channels and to discover relations within and between samples to find more mineable copper. Read moreRead less
The early tectonic evolution of the Curnamona Province. This project aims to test the hypothesis that the Curnamona Province preserves evidence for an extension-related structural geology architecture. This will allow a comparison of the basin evolution, crustal architecture and mechanisms of basin development between the Curnamona Province and well-understood basins of the Mount Isa Inlier. The project is expected to add value to pre-existing databases, and deliver a plate tectonic and str ....The early tectonic evolution of the Curnamona Province. This project aims to test the hypothesis that the Curnamona Province preserves evidence for an extension-related structural geology architecture. This will allow a comparison of the basin evolution, crustal architecture and mechanisms of basin development between the Curnamona Province and well-understood basins of the Mount Isa Inlier. The project is expected to add value to pre-existing databases, and deliver a plate tectonic and structural framework to interpret basin evolution and constrain geochronology/geochemical analysis, and develop a three-dimesional crustal architecture. The results will provide new constraints on the evolution of the Australian plate, and how the Australian crust has evolved.Read moreRead less
Where to find giant porphyry and epithermal gold and copper deposits. This project will determine when and where giant gold or copper deposits should form, consolidating links with Indonesia, and using South East Asia as a vast natural laboratory in which to examine the effect of large-scale tectonic processes. The project will produce a four-dimensional virtual exploration toolkit to show how to apply the methods.
Reverse engineering nature: metal extraction through mineral replacement. This project aims to find new methods of copper recovery from low grade copper ores, which are currently uneconomic to mine. In nature, at the top of ore deposits and just below the water-table, is a region known as the supergene zone. Here mild oxidizing reactions take place causing primary ore minerals such as chalcopyrite to be replaced by more copper-rich, less refractory minerals. These processes are driven by disso ....Reverse engineering nature: metal extraction through mineral replacement. This project aims to find new methods of copper recovery from low grade copper ores, which are currently uneconomic to mine. In nature, at the top of ore deposits and just below the water-table, is a region known as the supergene zone. Here mild oxidizing reactions take place causing primary ore minerals such as chalcopyrite to be replaced by more copper-rich, less refractory minerals. These processes are driven by dissolution re-precipitation reactions (CDR reactions) and in many CDR reactions, the reaction mechanism, rather than intensive properties such as pressure and temperature, control the nature of the products and the overall reaction process. This project will explore the mechanism and controls on these reactions to see if they can be utilized in the mining industry to economically extract copper from low grade ores.
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Developing a new tectonothermal and mineralization history for the Capricorn Orogen, Western Australia: Assisting mineral exploration in greenfields terrains. Successful exploration models rely on the development of a reliable geological framework through which to understand the specific processes responsible for the formation of economic ore deposits. A framework cannot be constructed without robust age data. This Project will apply advanced geochronology, combined with regional- and deposit-sc ....Developing a new tectonothermal and mineralization history for the Capricorn Orogen, Western Australia: Assisting mineral exploration in greenfields terrains. Successful exploration models rely on the development of a reliable geological framework through which to understand the specific processes responsible for the formation of economic ore deposits. A framework cannot be constructed without robust age data. This Project will apply advanced geochronology, combined with regional- and deposit-scale field mapping, to formulate a new and improved stratigraphic and tectonic framework for a prospective greenfields region in Western Australia. Outcomes from this Project will lead to more effective exploration models and thereby better exploration targeting. Reducing uncertainty and risk in exploration is key to the discovery and development of deep Earth resources. Read moreRead less
Experimental constraints on the genesis of gold-rich ore deposits. The project will provide a new set of tools to explore for gold-rich ore deposits in Australia and globally. By integrating geochemical studies with cutting-edge experiments carried out at three Australian universities in strategic partnership with industry, the outcomes of this project will provide much needed knowledge to predict the locations of large gold-rich deposits that are concealed beneath vast expanses of the Australia ....Experimental constraints on the genesis of gold-rich ore deposits. The project will provide a new set of tools to explore for gold-rich ore deposits in Australia and globally. By integrating geochemical studies with cutting-edge experiments carried out at three Australian universities in strategic partnership with industry, the outcomes of this project will provide much needed knowledge to predict the locations of large gold-rich deposits that are concealed beneath vast expanses of the Australian continent. The new results will translate into smarter exploration practice, significantly enhancing success in targeting ore deposits that are rich in high-value metal and display the smallest have a small environmental footprint, to underpin the sustainability of our nation into the future.
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