BASF boosts apatite flotation with new solutions

📍𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐈𝐈⁣⁣ 💡💡💡 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐮𝐛𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐢𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐙𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐠𝐞 𝐌𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠, 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐡 𝐨𝐛𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 "𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐮𝐦 𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐞" 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐮𝐦 𝐞𝐱𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐚𝐥𝐭 𝐥𝐚𝐤𝐞, 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐭𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐮𝐚𝐥 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝟏𝟏,𝟎𝟎𝟎 𝐭𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐬 𝐮𝐧𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐝 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠. 🎐(...) Zangge Potash Fertilizer produces potash fertilizer by extracting raw brine from underground in the Qarhan Salt Lake. This process generates a large amount of tail brine as a byproduct. The lithium chloride concentration in the tail brine is significantly lower than the minimum industrial grade of lithium chloride. According to the "Specifications for Comprehensive Exploration and Evaluation of Mineral Resources" (GB/T 25283-2023), the lithium resources in the Zangge Potash Fertilizer mining area cannot be individually identified as ore bodies but can be utilized in a comprehensive manner. However, due to technical difficulties and the low price of early lithium carbonate, the company has not yet developed and utilized the resources. With the recovery of lithium carbonate prices, lithium extraction from low-concentration tail brine has become economically viable. Zangge Mining believes that by leveraging its independently developed technology to comprehensively utilize the associated mineral lithium chloride, it has fulfilled the project approval procedures required by relevant departments. 🔎 The suspension of production at Zangge Mining's subsidiary coincided with the expiration of the Qarhan Mining Area's mining license on August 9th. In November of last year, Zangge Mining stated during an investor conference that it was in the process of renewing its Qarhan Salt Lake mining license. According to relevant regulations and policies, mining licenses are generally renewable as long as the conditions and procedures are met, and the company is fully committed to ensuring the smooth renewal process. During an investor conference in August of this year, the company stated that it was also applying to add lithium, sodium, magnesium, and boron to its existing mining license, which involved changes to the existing mining license. Upon obtaining the new mining license, the company will immediately submit an application for resumption of production to the Haixi Prefecture Salt Lake Administration and resume operations upon approval. During the suspension period, the team will complete equipment maintenance originally scheduled for December ahead of schedule, allowing full operation to resume. The annual production and sales plan of 11,000 tons remains unchanged for the time being, subject to further adjustments depending on the timing and progress of the resumption. 🎫 The mining license renewal of the salt lake lithium extraction enterprise has been completed 👉 Continnue Part III. Read More Here.

Strategic alliance fast-tracks lithium extraction innovation Kurita Water Industries and Evove announced their alliance in direct lithium extraction (DLE), combining Evove’s patented DLE technologies and processes with Kurita’s modular system engineering and manufacturing capabilities. #mining #miningnews #canadianminingjournal #lithium #kuritawaterindustries #evove #engineering

CiDRA P29 interest and alignment gathers pace CiDRA Minerals Processing Inc.’s innovative #P29 system has the potential to form the heart of future mineral processing flowsheets. Unlike other options that take effect further downstream, grind-circuit #roughing with P29 offers the possibility of #increasinggrindsize and directly reducing the recirculating load in #grindingmills, increasing mill throughput by 20% or more at a constant grind size. More and more big mining houses are seeing its potential in existing plants to free up capacity and throughput. With so much potential, and the urgent need for solutions to be made viable, #CiDRA has partnered with Worley and The Weir Group PLC and formed an integrated collaborative team for the P29 technology development and implementation. #Worley brings full #EPC delivery capabilities, including technology development and commercialisation, and #Weir provides experience in flowsheet and product development, as well as access to their market leading solutions including pumps, HPGRs and cyclones. The integrated team working on P29 solutions is advancing this innovative technology to a market ready solution for our industry. Worley has been working alongside CiDRA for four years, and in May 2025, CiDRA and Weir announced that they had signed a global collaboration agreement alongside a strategic investment by Weir in CiDRA’s mining business.  The most significant P29 pilot plant site testing to date has been BHP’s #Carrapateena #copper operation in #SouthAustralia, where a pilot plant in October 2025 will reach a year of operation. CiDRA COO Mark Holdsworth: “The first two campaigns of running the plant in November and December 2024 delivered the metallurgical performance that BHP Carrapateena wanted to see, as they had a threshold of copper recovery and we exceeded that, which they were very pleased with. This period saw us carry out multiple tests, so that gave them confidence. They then basically handed the pilot plant operation back to us, which allowed us to do our development work, plus set our operating boundaries etc. And then in June 2025, we were requested to repeat previously achieved recoveries, and we have done that – so we have demonstrated an ability to deliver consistent results...the pilot plant has demonstrated repeatable metallurgical performance. So I think what we are now seeing is that everyone is aligning. The next step is to do a demo scale plant." In the meantime, CiDRA have done some Class 5 engineering studies together with Worley. For both BHP and for Rio Tinto, with whom CiDRA is also in discussions with, the most important factor is P29’s potential to bring a significant reduction in #comminution energy. #coarseparticlerecovery #mineralseparation #flotationalternatives For the full article - see below👇

Anglo American presses ahead with SandLix™ The Anglo American Technical Solutions team is pressing head with scale up of #SandLix™, the novel #heapleach process which it says directly addresses some of the most pressing challenges facing the industry when it comes to future copper supply. The latest large #pilotcolumn is now up and running at the Anglo American Technical Solutions facility in Johannesburg. South Africa’s ProProcess has also been involved with the pilot, providing fabrication for the column. Chris Biley, Anglo American VP, Technology Development, said in an online update that the team is continuing excellent scale-up performance seen to date and providing key data into for ongoing deployment studies. To date, fieldwork has also included a prototype heap at the El Soldado #copper mine in Chile. SandLix™ is part of Anglo’s #FutureSmartMining™ programme and has been specifically developed to economically treat low-grade, complex ores, while being far less energy and water intensive than conventional processes, such as flotation. SandLix™ is conceptually simple and has been demonstrated at pilot scale, proving to deliver equal or better recovery rates than #flotation on primary ore – more than 85% within 250 days. Anglo says the key to unlocking high recoveries lies in the configuration and control of the particle size, temperature and chemistry in highly permeable heaps, which are adapted specifically for each ore. Precise control of these optimised heaps generates conditions for natural #biooxidising microbes to thrive and increase the temperature of the heap to where high recovery rates of copper can be achieved from even low-grade, complex primary copper ores dominated by #chalcopyrite which existing leaching processes are not capable of recovering copper from economically and sustainably. Through this unique process of heap leaching, SandLix™ has the potential to reduce the cut-off grade of copper processes by up to 20% and increase resource utilisation by economically processing low-grade ores, while reducing water and energy intensity and the quantity of wet tailings. The technology reimagines the heap leach process by engineering the #particlesize of the ore to generate a highly permeable ‘sand’ for heap leaching. Fines are removed from the ore to increase the permeability of the remaining heap, and are treated in a separate small, integrated flotation process which both increases recovery and optimises leach reagent consumption. What then remains is a heap made up of sand grain sized particles through which the chemicals can easily flow, enabling the chemical conditions and temperatures in these permeable sand heaps to be more precisely controlled to recover copper from the ore. #futureofprocessing #heapleaching

🇧🇷 A modern-day ziggurat in Brazil, built not of marble or mudbricks, but of magnesium-rich mining byproducts that can remove carbon from the atmosphere. 💡 What you need to know: Last week, Isometric announced a partnership with Anglo American (a global mining leader and the world’s largest platinum producer) and German Enhanced Weathering (EW) company ZeroEx on a project in Brazil that aims to use mining by-product as a feedstock for EW with the objective of demonstrating EW projects can be done at scale, in a safe, fully verifiable and responsible manner. ⭐ Project Earthstone 📍 Location: Barro Alto, Goiás, Brazil, is close to vast agricultural land 🪨 Feedstock: ferronickel smelter slag, already stockpiled in vast quantities 🎯 Potential: >15 million tonnes of CO₂ removal capacity, with another 1 Mt added annually ❗ Why this matters Anglo American has committed to carbon neutrality (Scope 1 & 2) by 2040, guided by the mitigation hierarchy: Avoid → Reduce → Substitute → Sequester → Inset → Offset. The group aims to prioritize carbon mitigation projects within existing business and value chains. Enhanced weathering via mining byproducts lets Anglo American: 🔹 Leverage an existing waste stream in its Nickel business 🔹Carry out removals within its own value chain 🔹Turn a carbon liability into an in-value-chain abatement strategy 🤓 This isn’t offsets! It’s carbon removal integrated into operations. 🚜 From trials to scale Since 2022, Anglo has run scientific trials applying slag to soils. The result? Strong enough to warrant expanding pilots and partnerships. 🤝 Now comes the partners: ▪️ ZeroEx brings the science and MRV tech to quantify removals. ▪️Isometric provides the standard and protocol so high-quality credits can be issued. ▪️Anglo American supplies scale, feedstock, and operational expertise. 🌀 Together, they close the loop from waste feedstock → field application → quantification → issuance of verifiable credits. 😃 Why the excitement? We’ve long known mining could play a critical role in scaling carbon removal, through both enhanced weathering and mineralization. But concrete, on-the-ground integrations between major mining players and CDR companies are still rare. That’s why Project Earthstone matters. It could, ✅ Demonstrate enhanced weathering at industrial scale ✅ Provide transferable knowledge on safety, verification, and deployment ✅ Set a precedent for how mining companies can lead in carbon removal 🤞 I hope that Project Earthstone can soon be an example of how mining could become a driver of gigatonne-scale carbon removal. And the Ziggurats of its kinds can all be put to good climate use.

It was great to see ResponsibleGlass and the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance (IRMA) announce that they will be working together to address sustainability issues in the glass value chain (https://lnkd.in/eKc87y6D). This was almost the first public announcement ResponsibleGlass has made, and raises two questions: firstly, why is it so important for ResponsibleGlass to work with a mining programme? And secondly, given that there are a number of ‘responsible mining standards’ out there, why choose IRMA? The first question is pretty straightforward to answer. Glass – unless it is recycled - is made largely from mined materials. Silica sand, soda ash, limestone and dolomite are the largest by volume, but there’s a long list of additional materials that are important for particular kinds of glass or for glassmaking processes, from alumina through to zircon and zinc. It would be pretty stupid for ResponsibleGlass to develop its own standards for mining these materials responsibly if effective standards already exist. Ok, then – so why IRMA? It’s worth noting that the IRMA-ResponsibleGlass collaboration is not exclusive. They will be looking to work together with other programmes that bring additional expertise to the table: for example, on the application of standards to the particular circumstances of sand extraction, and to ensure they are applicable to the scale of the businesses involved. But still, why IRMA? I would probably focus on three reasons. Firstly, the IRMA programme is widely recognised in the mining sector, as well as by the end users of mined materials, and by civil society organisations, as being the most comprehensive in its approach to sustainability issues. The second reason is that IRMA, like ResponsibleGlass, is a multi-stakeholder programme. And that leads on to the third. Glass is used for thousands of products, and it is used together with components made from other mined materials: steel, aluminium, nickel, chromium, copper, cobalt, lithium, zinc…. IRMA standards can cover all of these, and the manufacturers and end users who are most serious about responsible sourcing often look to IRMA to set that bar. The hope must be that ResponsibleGlass will be able to make manufacturers and end users a simple offer: ‘You already have policies for the responsible sourcing of metals. We can help you apply the same principles to your sourcing of glass.’ If you are a car maker, an architectural supplier or a renewable energy producer, that would be one less problem to worry about. #responsibleglass #sustainability #silicasand #trona #IRMA #responsiblemining #glass #greenbuilding

Printer Spacer innovation for RO membranes is revolutionizing water treatment in mining Aqua Membranes’ breakthrough technology is improving energy efficiency, increasing water recovery, and extending membrane life in mining operations. Water plays a critical role in mining operations. It is used for everything from ore extraction and mineral processing to dust suppression and equipment cooling. #mining #miningnews #canadianminingjournal #water #aquamembranes

Walvis Bay Salt plans major expansion : Chamwe Kaira  Walvis Bay Salt Holdings (Pty) Ltd plans to apply for an amendment to its Environmental Clearance Certificate (ECC) to expand salt production within its Mining License (ML) 37 area. Documents show the expansion will take place southwest of Walvis Bay in the Erongo Region. The company, established in 1964, processes seawater to produce crude salt and is one of the largest solar evaporation salt facilities in Africa. In November 1995, the Ministry of Mines and Energy extended its licence for the salt works under ML 37. Annual production has since increased from 750,000 metric tonnes to about 1.1 million metric tonnes. Walvis Bay Salt, which recently marked its 60th anniversary, exports to more than 15 international markets and accounts for 70% of the product flow through the Port of Walvis Bay. In 2024, the company contributed over N$36 million in revenue to the Namibian Ports Authority (Namport). In May of this year, the company inaugurated a N$100 million salt warehouse at the port, marking a significant step for Namibia’s export infrastructure and industrial capacity. The Ministry of Mines issues new ECCs to the company every three years, with the most recent granted in February 2025. Walvis Bay Salt now plans to develop new evaporation and crystallisation ponds within its current boundaries to boost salt output. Walvis Bay Salt Holdings operates through three subsidiaries: Salt and Chemicals (Pty) Ltd, Walvis Bay Salt Refiners (Pty) Ltd, and Ekango Salt Refiners (Pty) Ltd. “Salt & Chemicals is conducting the salt production and mining operations to generate the crude salt, whilst Walvis Bay Salt Refiners further processes and markets the products. Ekango produces refined table salt,” the company said. Sodium chloride makes up about 80% of the total salt content in seawater by weight. The group currently operates solar salt production across 5 214 hectares of water-covered area. The company said the proposed expansion will not require major changes to its existing infrastructure. “The current seawater intake facilities have sufficient capacity to support the increased footprint and the associated larger evaporation area and production volumes. Similarly, the existing salt washing and bagging plant has adequate spare capacity to manage the anticipated increase in production,” the company stated. Caption Walvis Bay Salt Holdings is planning to expand its salt production facilities.  * Photo: Contributed https://lnkd.in/dvSZz-e9 #WalvisBay #SaltProduction #Namibia #MiningNews #EnvironmentalClearance

The mining engineer’s guide to advanced scraper strainer technology Mining engineers and plant managers oversee mineral extraction and processing while ensuring compliance with strict environmental rules. They manage slurry systems, ore processing, and vast volumes of water used in separation and dust control, maintaining reliability under abrasive conditions. With water use under scrutiny, mines seek efficient ways to strain, treat, and reuse water. #mining #miningnews #canadianminingjournal #watermanagement #acmestrainers #slurry

MIRARCO Celebrates Opening of New Facility for Bioprocessing Mine Waste MIRARCO Mining Innovation celebrated the grand opening of its new piloting facility in Sudbury, Ontario, which will serve as a hub for applied research in bioleaching and bioprocessing. Nadia Mykytczuk PhD, MIRARCO - Mining Innovation Rehabilitation and Applied Research Corporation Lynn Wells, Laurentian University/Université Laurentienne Gord Gilpin, Vale Base Metals TTSC (Technology Tools Services Company),Wahnapitae First Nation, CanmetMINING, Cambrian College, City of Greater Sudbury #bioprocessing #mining