JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Diversified miner Rio Tinto and the University of Queensland, in Australia, have established the Rio Tinto Centre for Advanced Mineral Sorting, at a cost of $11-million, to develop technologies for the separation and upgrading of minerals, such as copper and nickel, with increased efficiency.

Valuable metals such as copper and nickel were becoming increasingly hard to find and recover by using traditional processing techniques, Rio stated, adding that new copper deposits typically contained lower ore grades with more complex geology than in the past, making the recovery of target minerals more costly and energy intensive.

“The latest developments in advanced mineral detection systems and rapid data processing capability now makes automated mineral sorting a very attractive processing option. Our work with the University of Queensland will develop state-of-the-art approaches to sorting across a range of strategically important minerals,” Rio Tinto head of innovation John McGagh said.

The company added that the parties had already started scaling up one concept and expected more to follow.

The centre, which would be located at the Julius Kruttschnitt Mineral Research Centre in Brisbane, would run for an initial five-year period and complement other existing Rio Tinto centres, the diversified miner noted in a statement.

These centres were located at the University of Sydney and Curtin University, in Australia, as well as at the Imperial College, in London. The centres would work together to provide ongoing capability in mining and mineral processing, the miner said.

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