IMPACTING SECTOR TRANSFORMATION: SUCCESSFUL COMMERCIALISATION WITH JORD

The next 30 years will see massive energy investment as the world shifts from the fuels of the 20 th Century, to meet the renewable energy needs of the 21 st

(Centre industry partner) Jord International (Jord) is pioneering new technologies required for this transition and improving existing technologies to minimise their impact. The Company’s priorities include focusing on technology innovations that deliver critical minerals and power new energy solutions in an efficient, cost-effective and sustainable manner; and ensuring brownfield solutions allow existing process plant to run more efficiently, thereby lowering emissions and extending plant life.

Jord celebrated 50 years of business in 2022 and it was successful in progressing two important new technologies towards commercialisation: NovaCell™ and XtractOre™.

Jord General Manager of Resources Kevin Barber says the company’s full-time on-campus presence at the UON has been key: “The daily interaction under an embedded partnership model with COEMinerals has allowed us to be a very hands-on partner with the ability to influence changes,” said Mr Barber.

“We also participated in the COEMinerals Annual Conference, interacting with the full team of academics and students, which provided a terrific environment for real engagement between industry partners, academics, students, government leaders and indigenous community leaders.”

In 2022, Jord (backed by funding from ACARP) collaborated closely to break ground on a full-scale XtractOre™ 500 m 3 per hour demonstration plant at a site in New South Wales (NSW), Australia.

Based largely on work led by Centre Director, L/Prof Kevin Galvin, XtractOre™ is a novel agglomeration technology that could ultimately “deliver a 10 to 100 fold increase in the speed of fine particle separation” compared to traditional flotation technology. The demonstration plant is expected to become operational in 2023.

Jord also secured an order to design and deliver a pilot-scale NovaCell™ unit for evaluations at multiple customer sites with a goal to confirm the technology benefits for a variety of high value mineral processing commodities, as well as securing government funding to deliver a fullscale NovaCell™ module at an Australian mining operation. As a winner of the NSW Critical Minerals and High-Tech Activation Fund (Stream 2), Jord received funding to deliver the first NovaCell™ demonstration plant, which will commence in 2022 and is expected to be completed in 2025. These developments represent significant progress towards the commercialisation and industrywide acceptance of the exciting new technology created by Centre Chief Investigator L/Prof Graeme Jameson.

Jord Technology Manager – Flotation, Sherwin Morgan, says receiving government funding for a demonstration plant is a significant milestone. “It’s a massive step forward in the commercialisation of the technology. It also acknowledges the NovaCell™’s potential to support the growth of the critical minerals industry and provide long-term benefits both locally and abroad,” said Mr Morgan.

Mr Barber says NovaCell™ stands to make huge energy and water savings for the resources industry.

“The NovaCell™ provides efficient coarse and fine particle flotation recovery in one device, which allows mine operators to reject a significant portion of feed early on, while maintaining good recoveries,” says Mr Barber.

“As a result, you can reduce energy consumption, target higher mill throughputs, and install smaller downstream equipment.”

“In addition to greatly improving recoveries, it produces a coarse tail for modern tailings management practices, such as belt filtration and dry stacking.”

Reflecting broader industry acceptance of the new technologies, Jord was announced as a winner of the ‘OZ Minerals Think and Act Differently Waste to Value Challenge’ and it developed a new partnership with a commercial laboratory to support an increase in market interest. Jord’s team also grew with the appointment of University of Newcastle’s Lonn Cooper, bringing 16 years of NovaCell™ experience to continue supporting the product development and commercialisation.

“COEMinerals is a vibrant research community determined to accelerate the realisation of the ‘zero emission mine’. We bring together expertise in the design of microbial-expressed peptide sequences, with the world’s pre-eminent polymer and physical chemists, and draw on more than 200 years of engineering capability to conceive, develop and implement ground-breaking innovation and technological solutions to impact transformative change in the global minerals industry. In doing so, we develop new scientific knowledge and empower the next generation of sector leaders.”

Chief Investigator, Prof Grant Webber

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