The University of Queensland has scooped the pool in the recent Awards of Excellence in Innovation for the Cooperative Research Centre Association.
Out of the four awards given nationally, UQ is a lead partner in two of the CRCs that won.
Representatives from the CRC for Cast Metals Manufacturing and CRC Mining were presented with the awards by Federal Science Minister Peter McGauran in Adelaide this week.
The CRC Association Awards recognise the outstanding examples of cooperative research that has been transformed into practical benefits for all Australians.
CRC for Cast Metals Manufacturing won an award for work on alternative technology to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Professor David St John, CEO of the CRC, said industrial trials of a new cover gas – AM-cover – had successfully demonstrated significant environmental, process and cost improvements for the magnesium industry.
Cover gases are required in magnesium smelting to prevent molten magnesium from burning in air.
“We developed the alternative to the industry standard SF6, a very potent greenhouse gas, as a cover gas for magnesium melting,” Professor St John said.
“The AM-cover melt protection system reduces greenhouse gas emissions by more than 95%.
“The innovation is important given that production of magnesium is expected to increase rapidly due to its advantages in being both light and strong.”
The award to CRC Mining was presented for new mining technology called the Universal Dragline System that radically improves production and operational flexibility.
Professor Michael Hood, CEO of the CRC, said draglines were the workhorses of the open-cut coal industry and these improvements in the technology had the potential to improve dragline productivity levels by 25%.
“Conventional rigging limits the flexibility of the dragline operation and has not changed in design for 50 years,” Professor Hood said.
“The UDS technology involves major changes to the dragline’s bucket, rigging and mechanical design and includes a specially designed computer control system.”
Media: For more information contact Professor David St John (telephone 07 3365 3574, 0411 022 197), Professor Michael Hood (telephone 07 3365 5640, 0418 752 112) or Andrew Dunne at UQ Communications (telephone 07 3365 2802).
