Displaying items by tag: testing

Indonesia: Suvo Strategic Minerals has reported successful laboratory tests in collaboration with Makassar State University (UNM) in Indonesia, transforming nickel slag into a ‘high-strength, low-cost and low-carbon’ cement, according to The Sydney Morning Herald. The trials used slag from PT Huadi Nickel-Alloy Indonesia's operations in South Sulawesi, achieving a compressive strength of 37.5MPa after seven days. The company is now looking to conduct further testing and will provide the results to PT Huadi, with the aim of forming a partnership for the commercialisation of low-carbon cement using nickel slag.

Aaron Bank, executive chair of Suvo Strategic Minerals, said “We are excited to have commenced this workstream in Indonesia testing the byproduct of one of the country’s largest mining companies, with our ultimate goal being to manufacture an environmentally-friendly and low-carbon alternative to Portland cement. Achieving up to 37.5MPa after only seven days is an outstanding first round trial result for the company and could provide an entry into a large industry.”

Australia: Australian Steel Mill Services (ASMS) and the University of Wollongong have launched an investigation into the possible industrial uses of steel furnace slag (SFS) at the Steel Research Hub in Wollongong, New South Wales. ASMS says that SFS has historically had a lower recyclability than ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS) because of its behaviour when hydrated, which potentially includes expanding. The research team believes that SFS might be a possible ingredient for construction materials, including paving slabs. Tests will involve mixtures of SFS with cement, lime, lignosulphonate, coal wash and plastics.

Australia: Carbine Resources and Cement Australia intend to start a trial testing the suitability of the use of Mount Morgan slag for cement manufacturing by Cement Australia in Gladstone. Following initial tests the companies have agreed to a trial of 1000t to validate the test work. The site has over 6.5Mt of slag of which 2.9Mt will be mined as waste sitting above the Red Oxide tailings which will be mined and processed.

Zambia: BMR Group has finished laboratory scale test work on its imperial smelting furnace (ISF) slag dump at its Kabwe site. The company now intends to commission a study to convert its ISFS stockpile into a Joint Ore Reserves Committee (JORC) compliant resource. The site contains potentially 120,000t of zinc.

"These results are especially encouraging as they demonstrate the potential for BMR to extract a greater proportion of the in situ materials at Kabwe than previously anticipated for the benefit of our shareholders. We will therefore be commissioning a JORC survey of the ISF slag and will report the results of this survey to shareholders when available," said chairman Alex Borrelli.

Following the tests the company has announced that, in co-operation with Kupfermelt Metal Processing, its has reached a recovery of 85% zinc and 91% lead at a leach temperature of 80°C and 75% zinc and 80% lead at an ambient temperature. It has also more than halved its sulphuric acid consumption, compared to tests run in September 2015, to approximately 500kg/t. The sulphating acid brine leach process also recovered approximately 90% of the contained vanadium from the slag/leach plant residues (LPR) composite. The IFS slag potentially contains 9000t of vanadium which is expected to be recovered in the form of vanadium pentoxide.

BMR's metallurgical partner has advised that the proposed Kabwe processing plant can in due course be modified to incorporate a sulphating acid brine leach circuit to process the slag/LPR composite. The company's strategy remains however to treat first the wash plant tailings with the acid brine leach process.