A University of Queensland company and a Brisbane gold explorer have joined forces to commercialise a new material which soaks up toxic metal pollutants from acid mine wastewater.
Last year the University's technology transfer company UniQuest Limited formed a joint venture agreement with newly-listed company Cardia Mining NL to develop a technology pioneered by university researchers.
Its inventors believe the technology has the potential to treat acid mine drainage at a fraction of the cost and time of existing processes. The metal scavenging material developed in the technology also offers potential for re-use of mine waters in an operating mine.
As part of a desire to take the technology quickly to the marketplace, a pilot plant has been built by a division of UniQuest Ltd, known as Advanced Ceramics Development, at the Julius Kruttschnitt Mineral Research Centre at Indooroopilly to produce the new, low-cost material. The first commissioning trials have been held successfully in the past few weeks.
Head of Advanced Ceramics Development (ACD) Professor Ian Mackinnon said the pilot plant was producing the new material, known as Kaolin Amorphous Derivative (KAD), in 25kg batches, with an expected routine production of about 0.5 tonnes a month. The pilot plant design and construction - undertaken by a local engineering firm Nixenco Ltd - allows for further expansion of production capacity when required.
Pilot plant trials over the next few months would allow accurate determination of capital and operating costs for a large scale plant with 5000-10,000 tonnes a year capacity. Preliminary estimates of the market potential for this material suggest that these levels of production will be required as major applications are proven in the market place.
Since the agreement was signed last year between UniQuest and Cardia Mining, the joint venture company known as Mine Remediation Services Pty Ltd has been formed. This company will establish services to the mining industry for remediation of acid mine drainage via operation of equipment to place the new material in solution, to monitor toxic metal levels, to recover the metal and to put the treated solutions back into the environment.
Professor Mackinnon said the critical next step would be for Mine Remediation Services P/L to establish a presentation pilot plant which would begin field trials of KAD materials at targeted mine sites - probably on the east coast of Australia.
He said ACD had spent 'a lot of time' establishing the fundamentals of the technology and a strong protection strategy to ensure the University of Queensland received maximum benefit from exploitation in the marketplace.
'The joint venture agreement with Cardia Mining is the first example of the success of our commercial strategy for this technology,' he said.
'Cardia Mining - a junior gold explorer - has been licensed to use the technology as it applies in the area of minesite remediation. From a commercial viewpoint, this is clever way to take the technology into the marketplace using an Australian company with a strong interest in the mining game.
'It's a nice marriage of group interests in the mining industry, environmental management obligations and high technology.'
Professor Mackinnon said KAD was produced from a common clay mineral called kaolinite. Kaolinite is found in Australia - large deposits are located on Cape York for example, at Weipa. Kaolinite has many uses including the production of porcelain ceramics, the manufacture of papers and insulators and in some circumstances, the provision of quality surfaces for glossy paper.
'The new KAD material has different structural and chemical properties from the original kaolinite clay - in particular, a very high surface area (up to 10 times higher than kaolin), and a greatly increased ability to exchange cations (positively charged ions),' Professor Mackinnon said.
'In cation exchanges, metal ions such as lead, copper, zinc and cadmium can be exchanged for innocuous ions such as sodium or potassium, on the surface of KAD.
'Cation exchanges in the new material are 50/100 times higher than in kaolin material, an important consideration in remediating acid mine sites which commonly occur in eastern Australia due to the presence of sulphide minerals as part of the overburden, and high rainfall. Acid mine drainage is also a big problem internationally, and environmental requirements are becoming stricter for mine owners.'
Professor Mackinnon said since the original discovery of KAD, the program had now developed a number of ways to make the material, and, in fact, had developed a suite of KAD materials.
The first international patent protection has been approved and awarded, while other patents are pending. A number of other selection patents which derive from the key patents on material composition and process are also in progress.
For further information, contact Professor Mackinnon, telephone 07 3365 3798/3365 7907.
