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MetMine: Extractive Metallurgy & Mineral Processing
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 New Non-toxic Method for Mining GoldTuesday, May 14, 2013Northwestern University scientists have struck gold in the laboratory. They have discovered an inexpensive and environmentally benign method that uses simple cornstarch—instead of cyanide—to isolate gold from raw materials in a selective manner. read more » Heap Leach Conference Coming SoonFriday, April 26, 2013There is a new conference being organized that will cover all aspects of heap leaching. The conference will take place in Vancouver, September 22-25, 2013. read more » New Technique to Transform Precious Metal RecoveryWednesday, March 06, 2013Murdoch University researchers have come up with a new approach to make the recovery of high value precious metals faster and more economically viable. Dr Chun-Yang Yin and Dr Aleksandar Nikoloski said the rising cost of metals such as platinum and palladium made recovery economically and environmentally vital. read more » Scientists Discover Bacteria That Can Make Gold out of Mine WasteTuesday, February 05, 2013A group of scientists has identified a bacterium that turns toxic water-soluble gold into microscopic nuggets of the solid precious metal, reveals the paper published Monday in Nature Chemical Biology. read more » Metso strengthens plant optimization services by acquiring U.S. software company ExperTune Inc.Wednesday, January 02, 2013Metso has acquired U.S. software company ExperTune Inc. ExperTune's products are widely used as software tools to analyze and monitor the performance of industrial processes and to identify associated maintenance and improvement opportunities. read more » Reflections on the CEEC Workshop: Flotation makes for a pretty interesting innovation storyMonday, December 03, 2012What Can We Learn From Innovation in Mining? In the late 19th Century, miners figured out how to get small amounts of precious metals out of large amounts of worthless rocks through the process of precipitation. read more » Engineering Grade Key to Transforming Resource ExtractionTuesday, November 20, 2012Advanced pre-concentration techniques to increase the yield of mineral ores such as gold and copper show potential to transform the economics of large, low grade mining operations. read more » Mining industry increasingly seeking water solutions Thursday, September 27, 2012The global mining water and wastewater sector was expected to grow as the focus on sustainable water solutions within the mining industry increased. read more » Digging for rare earths: The mines where iPhones are bornWednesday, September 26, 2012About 60 miles southwest of Las Vegas, in a mine some 500-feet deep, the beginnings of an iPhone come to life. read more » Alaska: Cyanide water spill at Fairbanks gold mineMonday, August 27, 2012Alaska officials say about 45,000 gallons of cyanide water solution spilled at the Fort Knox Gold Mine near Fairbanks after a bulldozer damaged a buried pipeline. read more » On REE mining & processingWednesday, August 22, 2012It's a complicated business, but Alex Knox has a simple recipe for successful rare earth mining. read more » Application of Colour Based Ore Sorting through Image ProcessingWednesday, August 15, 2012In the InfoMine Library there is an interesting technical paper that explains how ore can be separated from waste material by using image processing techniques. read more » Innovation in Mining: A New Book from PDAC and the Mining Assocation of CanadaWednesday, May 09, 2012At this link you will find a fascinating book put out by the Mining Association of Canada and the PDAC. It is called 100 Innovations in the Mining Industry. read more » Global Leaders Drive Debate on Improved Efficiency in ComminutionTuesday, March 06, 2012Global support for the Coalition for Eco-Efficient Comminution (CEEC) has come from leading mining, engineering, service and equipment companies. All these companies recognised the value CEEC provides to the industry read more » e2v and Rio Tinto Announce Memorandum of Understanding on ‘Mine of the Future™’ ProgrammeTuesday, February 21, 2012e2v has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Rio Tinto to develop large-scale ProWave™ microwave and radio frequency generators for use in world-leading mineral recovery. read more » Coalition for Eco-Efficient ComminutionThursday, February 16, 2012There is an interesting group called the Coalition for Eco Efficient Comminution (CEEC). CEEC is a not-for-profit company funded by grants from the mineral industry. read more » Mining one day, tourism eventually: BHP Tuesday, October 11, 2011BHP Billiton's Olympic Dam project, set to be the world's biggest mine, could have a second life as an outback tourist attraction when it closes. read more » CommodasUltrasort Aquires Terra Vision of QuebecThursday, August 26, 2010CommodasUltrasort, the leading provider of sensor-based ore sorting systems, has today entered into an agreement to acquire 100 percent of the shares in Terra Vision. read more » Get gold, humanely if you can, but at all hazards get gold!Tuesday, July 20, 2010
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York - The Key to the Gold Vault read more » Tsumeb Mine: A history of copper mining in NamibiaFriday, July 16, 2010The first written report of copper being seen in the Tsumeb area was made in 1857 when the Rhenish Missionaries H. Hahn and J. Rath in the company of hunter-trader F. Green made an expedition to the north with the objective of meeting with Ovambo chiefs. On June 17 they camped East of Grootfontein at the foot of the Otjitjika Mountain where they met Ovambo traders carrying neatly woven palm-leaf baskets that contained copper ore from the Otavi Mountains. read more » Reed Gold MineMonday, May 31, 2010One Sunday — supposedly in the spring — twelve-year-old Conrad Reed, son of John, chose to go fishing with several siblings in Little Meadow Creek on the family farm rather that attend church with his parents. While busy alongside the creek he saw "a yellow substance shining in the water." Its weight was later said to be approximately seventeen pounds. John Reed, unable to identify it, set the heavy stone aside as a useful doorstop and continued life as usual. read more » Combating acid rock drainage: industry collaborates on ARD GuideTuesday, February 09, 2010A guide to reducing Acid Rock Drainage (ARD) has been produced by The International Network for Acid Prevention. This internet-based global best practices guide for the prevention and mitigation of ARD was recently published by the International Network for Acid Prevention (INAP). INAP is an international consortium of major mining companies, working collectively to combat the issue of ARD. read more » Secondary zincMonday, December 07, 2009Shortage of zinc sulphide concentrates in the market coupled with increased demand from developed and emerging countries is causing price increases that are leading the primary zinc industry to consider alternative sources of zinc under more sustainable and
competitive conditions. In this way, feeding secondary zinc oxides to existing smelters represents a new deal for the zinc industry. read more » Thermodynamics of selective roasting of arsenic from tennantite containing copper concentratesMonday, November 09, 2009Australia exports ~ 3 millions of tpa of base metals in form of concentrate and refined metals. Base metal ores contain low levels (1- 104 ppm) of toxic/hazardous elements (As, Sb, Bi, Cd, Hg, Se, Te, Po, Th, U, ..). Smelters impose treatment charges and penalty payment on minor elements in concentrates and reject those beyond the level they can safely process. read more » Geothermal Power, Lithium Mining Two-in-One in CaliforniaFriday, October 09, 2009Geothermal power plants can extract lithium from underground brine and sell it to battery makers. One geothermal project is turning to startup Simbol Mining to try it out read more » The Coal ConundrumWednesday, September 30, 2009Coal is depended on for a variety of processes. Whether it's electricity generation, steel production or conversion into liquid fuels, it is a fuel on which our society is very dependant. Clean coal will take time and money before it can proliferate. In order to meet the demands that industry and society impose coal needs to be mined quickly and efficiently. read more » Chemical optimisation and sustainability in flotationWednesday, September 30, 2009The depletion of mineral resources associated with the cost and limited availability of water and energy is putting pressure on the industry to optimise its processes, especially concentration by flotation, Ricardo Capanema reports. read more » To leach or not to leach?Wednesday, September 30, 2009In-situ leaching (ISL) or in-situ recovery was developed in the mid 1970s as a method for extracting uranium from typical roll-front type deposits located in water saturated permeable rocks that were not suitable for conventional mining. It was conceived independently in both the (former) USSR and the USA using similar approaches in engineering and technology. read more » Planning for the futureWednesday, September 30, 2009In the introduction to ICMM's Planning for Integrated Mine Closure: Toolkit, the authors describe planning for closure as being "about how to design a mine operation in order to facilitate closure. When a project is designed,there is a lot of scope to do so with closure in mind..." read more » Steeling for a comebackWednesday, September 30, 2009At the beginning of August, Macquarie Research described iron ore prices as being "in transition." Announcing "progress" in its 2009 iron ore price negotiations, BHP Billiton highlighted what it views as significant progress in the evolution away from iron ore pricing dominated by an annually negotiated benchmark price towards a "transparent" pricing system based on index (or spot pricing). read more » Viva Las CrucesWednesday, September 30, 2009After an almost year-long suspension Las Cruces in southern Spain made the final leap into production in June. Daniel Gleeson examines a mine reporting contained copper of some 2,425 MIb, an estimated 15-year mine life and some exciting copper processing advances. read more » The road to GrasbergWednesday, September 30, 2009Until Bechtel built the first road in the early 1970s, and Freeport Indonesia subsequently developed the area, subrivers were the only access inland to the foothills of the Jayawijaya mountain range on Irian Jaya that hosts what is arguably the greatest ore complex discovered in the world to date, the Grasberg and Ertsberg copper gold deposits. read more » Researchers Study Impacts of Coal Mining on Water ResourcesMonday, August 31, 2009As the federal government announces new plans to protect water resources, these research efforts are underway to provide objective scientific information to policy makers and to those involved in the debate surrounding mountaintop-removal and other forms of coal mining. read more » Mercury-tainted fish found widely in U.S. streamsThursday, August 20, 2009Scientists have detected mercury contamination in every one of hundreds of fish sampled from 291 freshwater streams, according to a U.S. government study released on Wednesday. More than a quarter of those fish contained concentrations of mercury exceeding levels set by the Environmental Protection Agency for the protection of people who eat age amounts of fish, the U.S. Geological Survey report said. read more » The gold metallurgy of Isaac NewtonMonday, August 03, 2009The science of metals had always appealed to Isaac Newton and when, after the conclusion of his remarkable contributions to mathematics and physics, he was invited to take charge of the Royal Mint in London he was able not only to display his great gifts as an administrator but also to exercise his interest in metals and alloys and particularly in the metallurgy of gold. read more » Gold metallurgy in the Twelfth CenturyMonday, August 03, 2009The simple basic properties of gold – its colour, great malleability and ductility, and its immunity from oxidation even on melting – were well known in the ancient civilizations. In prehistoric times, in Egypt, Babylon and other lands of the Near East, the fabrication of gold articles was equally well understood, as the many brief references throughout the Old Testament establish. read more » Flotation '09 - MEI's 3rd Flotation ConferenceTuesday, July 21, 2009It is 103 years since froth flotation was patented, and it is often said to be the 20th century's most important technological development. read more » Online moisture analyser (for bulks such as iron ore or coal) easy to commission, calibrate and serviceFriday, June 26, 2009Callidan Instruments, the manufacturer of MoistScan®, has recently added remote access functionality to its range of online microwave moisture analysers. The MoistScan is now equipped with internet-based wireless connectivity making remote calibration and service easy and cost effective. read more » Electronic Journal on California Gold Rush and Gold MiningThursday, May 14, 2009The Sierra College Press has published an electronic journal on the California Gold Rush and Gold Mining. This eJournal is the latest edition of Snowy Range Reflections: A Journal of Sierra Nevada History and Biography. read more » Coal through a microscopeMonday, May 11, 2009If you think that coal is a boring black rock then you have never seen it through a transmitted light microscope. The microscope reveals coal's hidden beauty as well as its composition. read more » MIPAC Unveils CellView® for Copper Electro-refining and WinningWednesday, October 22, 2008MIPAC introduces new wireless technology for tankhouse management that significantly improves copper and other electrolytic process operations read more » Blasting and Fragmentation Software from BlastwareMonday, September 29, 2008From Blastware comes new software to simulate the charge delay times involved in blasting. read more » Heap Leach Pad RisksWednesday, September 03, 2008Risk management enables you to identify risks and take action to avoid them before you get hurt. At least that is the theory. read more » InfomimetThursday, August 28, 2008Here is a link to a fascinating site from Brazil. I refer to Infomimet which describes itself as an “important information source for the mining, mineral and metallurgical sectors in the context of sustainable development.” read more » Xstrata Technology & MIPAC in Exclusive Service AgreementTuesday, July 08, 2008MIPAC & Xstrata Technology have announced the formalisation of their long-standing relationship, with an exclusive Collaboration Agreement for the delivery of the ISASMELT™ & ISACONVERT™ smelting and copper converting technology. read more » In-Lake Tailings Disposal Tuesday, June 17, 2008A new report from the Globe and Mail states that sixteen Canadian mining companies have applied to dispose of mine tailings in lakes across the country. read more » Pierina Gold MineThursday, June 12, 2008GoldSim to the rescue again: an abstract for the conference on Tailings & Mine Waste ’08 tells of a water balance model for the Pierina Gold Mine in Peru using GoldSim for the entire plant. read more » MIPAC Delivering Advanced Process Control Solution for Xstrata ZincWednesday, April 30, 2008MIPAC, a respected world leader in process control, is working with Xstrata to improve operations in its Mt Isa Zinc Concentrator. MIPAC will help Xstrata to automate and optimise key processes in the plant read more » Non-Traditional Uranium MiningFriday, February 29, 2008Here is a way to get more uranium from old mines and simultaneously protect surface water quality. In the paper Non-Traditional Utilization of Uranium Deposits After Underground Mining Completion, Rapantova et al. write of recovery of uranium from groundwater read more » Copper Solvent ExtractionFriday, February 08, 2008Here is a link to a magnificent paper in the InfoMine library relevant to all metallurgists. The paper is called Technical Review – Copper Solvent Extraction in Hydrometallurgy. read more » Comminution TestsWednesday, January 23, 2008If you need to test your mine’s ore as part of a comminution study, you can do no better than get a copy of SGS’s booklet Comminution Tests. read more » HPGR Trade-Off StudiesTuesday, November 27, 2007TechnoMine has previously posted an article from Wardrop on High Pressure Grinding Rolls (HPGR) in the mining industry. read more » Conference of Metallurgists AbstractsWednesday, October 17, 2007At this link you will find the program and abstracts from a past Conference of Metallurgists. To keep you informed and help you decide, here are my edited versions of abstracts of papers that caught my attention. read more » Gekko Systems Short Info Program - Part 8Friday, September 7, 2007This is the last of an eight week short information program that is intended to keep people in the mineral processing sector up to date with the developments at Gekko Systems. read more » Gekko Systems Short Info Program - Part 7Friday, August 31, 2007This is the seventh of an eight week short information program that is intended to keep people in the mineral processing sector up to date with the developments at Gekko Systems. read more » Gekko Systems Short Info Program - Part 6Friday, August 24, 2007This is the sixth of an eight week short information program that is intended to keep people in the mineral processing sector up to date with the developments at Gekko Systems. read more » International Solvent Extraction Conference 2008Thursday, August 23, 2007From Bruce A. Moyer, Technical Program Chair, ISEC 2008: The deadline is approaching for abstracts for the International Solvent Extraction Conference, ISEC 2008 read more » Pollution Problems in the Mineral and Metallurgical IndustriesTuesday, August 21, 2007For those with a taste for the out-of-the way, the insightful and the different, here is a fascinating small book: Pollution Problems in the Mineral and Metallurgical Industries read more » Solvent ExtractionWednesday, August 15, 2007In 1989 Elsevier published a book called Tailings Management: Problems and Solutions in the Mining Industry by Gordon M. Ritcey. Here is a brief review of the book read more » Gekko Systems Short Info Program - Part 5Wednesday, August 15, 2007This is the fifth of an eight week short information program that is intended to keep people in the mineral processing sector up to date with the developments at Gekko Systems. read more » Gekko Systems Short Info Program - Part 4Thursday, August 09, 2007This is the fourth of an eight week short information program that is intended to keep people in the mineral processing sector up to date with the developments at Gekko Systems. read more » Gekko Systems Short Info Program - Part 3Wednesday, August 01, 2007This is the third of an eight week short information program that is intended to keep people in the mineral processing sector up to date with the developments at Gekko Systems. read more » Heap Leach Pad RaincoatsMonday, July 30, 2007The water balance of a heap leach pad may be detrimentally affected during the rainy season by excessive infiltration from heavy rains. read more » Gekko Systems Short Info Program - Part 2Wednesday, July 25, 2007This is the second of an eight week short information program that is intended to keep people in the mineral processing sector up to date with the developments at Gekko Systems. read more » Gekko Systems Short Info Program - Part 1Tuesday, July 17, 2007From Gekko Systems: This is the first of an eight week short information program that is intended to keep people in the mineral processing sector up to date with the developments at Gekko Systems.
read more » History of MetallurgyFriday, July 13, 2007A History of Metallurgy (1994) is edited by Fathi Habashi of the Department of Mining & Metallurgy, Laval University, Quebec City. It is a collection of articles from a multi-volume work. read more » Microwave Infrared TechnologiesFriday, April 27, 2007In a dim room in Denver, drinking after a snowy SME day, I chanced on a friendly & voluble fellow: Dr. Gus Van Weert. He told me in enthusiastic tones of his work. read more » DEM Solutions Particle MechanicsWednesday, April 11, 2007DEM Solutions software is used to simulate, analyze, and visualize particle flows so that you can get a feel for what is happening in a situation involving particle kinematics, momentum, and heat and mass transfer. read more » Mining LabsFriday, March 23, 2007At every stage of mining, a lab is needed to test some sample or other. During exploration there are soil and rock samples to test, during production there are metallurgical and environmental samples to test read more » ComminutionMonday, March 19, 2007International Mining, January 2007 features another of those great articles from John Chadwick with a catchy title and chock-full of content. This one is called Comminution Conundrum. read more » Application of High Pressure Grinding Rolls in the Mining IndustryFriday, March 16, 2007The application of High Pressure Grinding Rolls (HPGR) in the mining industry, especially as a replacement for the conventional Semiautogenous (SAG) milling process read more » Mining for the FutureTuesday, March 06, 2007There is no mining without human resources. People are ultimately what mining is all about. People to plan and run the mines. read more » Mine Chemical OpportunitiesMonday, February 26, 2007All the information you might need in 2007 on the what chemicals the mining industry will needs now and in the future. read more » BioteQ MexicoWednesday, February 21, 2007Technical and financial innovation in one project: Columbia Metals Corporation (also at this link) has contracted with BioteQ Environmental Technologies (also at this link) to construct and operate a copper recovery and water treatment plant read more » Franklin MiningWednesday, February 14, 2007A rare collection of technical and cost evaluation reports on a new mining project is available at the Franklin Mining, Inc site read more » Solution Mining IrrigationWednesday, February 07, 2007A well-produced brochure is more informative than a text book, and certainly more entertaining than most paper magazines stuffed with pale replications of marketing materials turned into fake-erudite articles. read more » Data MetallogenicaMonday, February 05, 2007Probably the most extraordinary website I have yet come across is Data Metallogenica on-line read more » Aditya Birla Minerals and IndiaWednesday, January 31, 2007The moral of this story is that news reports and Annual Reports can tell the curious engineers and technicians amongst us interesting tales of the trials and tribulations of mining read more » Silver Deposits - Analysis & MetallurgyThursday, January 19, 2007The method selection for silver analysis and the art and science of extracting silver metal from silver minerals... read more » Discrete Element Method (DEM)Thursday, November 30, 2006The sales brochures are readily available. The technical papers are not. What the computer software does is readily obvious. What can yet be done to benefit the mining industry is not. read more » Cyclones and KrebsWednesday, November 29, 2006The universal solution? At last computing power catches up with the need to analyze the real world. Solutions for the mining industry are not there yet, but the computer codes are standing ready read more » Proudfoot Case HistoriesMonday, November 27, 2006For the aficionado of mining case histories, there is a venerable cornucopia on the Proudfoot Consulting website. Here is an edited version of one they recently sent us read more » Zambian ProcessingThursday, November 23, 2006This from the pages of the Times of Zambia: Large scale mining companies have invested US$1.4 billion in plant rehabilitation, expansion and in new technology in the last five years, President Mwanawasa has said.
read more » Problem SolverFriday, November 10, 2006As the traditional diagnostic methods failed to provide any insight into the cause of the problem I found myself focussing more and more on the comments of the operator relative to the wind. read more » Phosphate RequestMonday, September 25, 2006Unusual requests sometime find their way to my desk. Sometimes I post them in accordance with the idea that doing so may help the sender and most importantly result in benefit to a reader of TechnoMine. read more » Met RequestMonday, September 18, 2006Can you help a student with information? Here is a request I received by e-mail from a student at the university that was the rival to that I attended. Therefore I must do anything I can to help in the interests of a long-standing academic rivalry. read more » Acid Mine DrainageThursday, September 14, 2006“Most sites have a lot of Fe in their acid mine drainage.” True. But how do you treat it? I do not know. But the answer is on the web. This is what I found. read more » CyclotecFriday, August 18, 2006Russians outwit Americans in patent resuscitation! You must love headlines like this. I use it to introduce the following that popped up one day in my e-mail inbox: Cyclotec, an engineering team from St. Petersburg, Russia read more » HJ3 Composite TechnologiesTuesday, August 22, 2006InfoMine will soon have Wikis and e-Forums on the pages of TechnoMine. In anticipation, here is the first competition: list the uses of high-strength carbon or glass filaments in a polymer resin in retrofitting and rehabilitating mine facilities. read more » |
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