The mining sector’s recent shift towards adopting technology to tackle rising costs is turning digital intellectual property into a valuable commodity in its own right, says global law firm White & Case.

“Technology is increasingly becoming a core component of mining and metals sector business strategies,” a partner with the firm, Daniel Turgel, told The Northern Miner in an interview Wednesday.

This trend is driven by rising operational costs and a need for the supply of minerals essential for the energy transition, according to the law firm’s March 5 report entitled Technology – The hottest commodity in the mining & metals sector.

IP is becoming crucial, transforming into a valuable asset exchanged among industry players to boost efficiency and reshape business models, Turgel explained.

A prime example is the partnership between Ivanhoe Electric (TSX: IE; NYSE AM: IE) and Saudi state-owned miner Ma’aden, leveraging Ivanhoe’s Typhoon technology to explore large areas in Saudi Arabia. Ivanhoe’s Typhoon technology, used for large-scale geological surveying, was essentially the ‘payment’ or value offered to Ma’aden for access to explore vast mineral-rich areas in Saudi Arabia.

“Technology actually becomes the currency,” Turgel said, highlighting the evolving nature of transactions in the sector and technology’s rising role in making new strategic cross-industry alliances.

“It’s becoming much more prevalent that for example, you might contribute your technology in return for an equity stake or some kind of debt instrument,” he said.

Rebecca Campbell, group head of global mining & metals, says this type of innovation is new for a generally conservative sector. “One of the fascinating things for us, as we’re starting to see a little bit of a shift.”

This trend underlines the growing importance of securing and managing IP rights amid the potential for new legal challenges. While hardware traditionally dominated the spotlight, the rise of software and AI has the potential to revolutionize mining operations. The report highlights the cost savings and efficiency gains achievable through these technologies.

Machine learning and AI have already provided considerable improvements in efficiency, accuracy, and safety mine planning and processing, White & Case associate Nick Crawford says.

“Generative AI, in particular, has opened new possibilities in exploring and processing vast amounts of geological data, significantly accelerating the project development process,” he said. “Companies like BHP and Vale are leveraging these technologies to improve safety, maintenance, and operational efficiency.”

Meanwhile, White & Case found that despite the urgent need to innovate, the sector’s spending on research and development (R&D) remains relatively low. Miners historically spend less than 3% of their EBITDA on R&D, as opposed to 8% for materials producers, 30% for industrials, and 40% for automakers and relevant original equipment manufacturers.

Metso’s hydrometallurgical alkaline leach process is a simple and safe way to refine spodumene concentrate to battery-grade end products like lithium hydroxide monohydrate and lithium carbonate. The innovative refining process produces high-purity lithium salts and hydrates, which are needed for the cathodes of lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles.

In the process, lithium is extracted with high yield. Inert and neutral mineral residue is minimized and ready to be reused or disposed of, thus minimizing pollution to air, water, and soil. No additional impurity removal or precipitation stages are needed.

In recent studies, the alkaline leach process has also shown reduced environmental impact compared to other technologies. Based on the life cycle impact assessment (LCIA), the process can provide up to 40% to 60%reduction in water consumption, as well reduction in the acidification and eutrophication impact. The compact process also minimizes plant footprint and embedded carbon.

Metso has been developing sustainable alkaline leaching technologies for hard rock lithium sources for 20 years. Today the offering includes comprehensive proprietary technologies for refining lithium from spodumene mineral concentrates. Intensive R&D and piloting is also ongoing in the processing of other lithium-bearing pegmatite hard rocks such as petalite, zinnwaldite, and lepidolite. Metso has proven processes also for the extraction of lithium from brines.

Metso has been developing lithium processing technologies for over 20 years. The processes address all aspects of production from mine to battery materials, and recycling of black mass plus world-class service support.

“As a strong and reliable partner for the development of lithium hydroxide and other battery minerals projects, Metso can deliver the whole production process – from mine to battery materials, and recycling of black mass – complemented with world-class service support,” says Marika Tiihonen, technology manager for lithium at Metso.

In a paper published in the journal Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology, the scientists explain that electronic waste is notoriously difficult to recycle because it’s hard to separate the different metals in the waste from each other.

“Getting the metals in solution is a first step, but the selective recovery of the metals remains a challenge. Compared to processes such as chemical precipitation, biosorption using spent brewer’s yeast presents a cheap and environmentally friendly approach,” Klemens Kremser of the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, and corresponding author of the article, said in a media statement.

Several options already exist for separating the different component metals of electronic waste, including other biosorbents—biological materials that can be used to soak up pollution. However, they all have significant downsides. For instance, chemical precipitation produces contaminated slag, while biochar—a biosorbent that is similar to charcoal—is difficult to separate from wastewater.

So the scientists turned to brewer’s yeast.

They acquired 20 litres of spent brewer’s yeast, separated the biomass from leftover brewing residues, and dried out the biomass. Electrostatic interactions on the surface of the yeast allow metal ions to stick to that surface—a process called adsorption. Changing the pH of this solution alters the interactions, which can allow the yeast to adsorb more or different metal ions, depending on the contents of the solution and the specific pH.

The researchers then chose to test the yeast biomass against zinc, aluminum, copper, and nickel, economically important metals. They tested each metal solution at different pHs and temperatures, to gauge whether it was possible to increase the strength of the interactions and recover more metal. They also tested the yeast against a real polymetallic waste stream.

“Using waste biomass for metal recovery is not a completely new process, but the selectivity of biosorption processes is a key factor for efficient metal recovery from polymetallic waste streams,” Anna Sieber, Ph.D. fellow of K1-MET, an Austrian metallurgical research center, and first author of the article, said.

“We demonstrated high metal recovery rates from a complex metal solution using an environmentally friendly and cheap biomass. Yeast biomass is considered a safe organism, and the demonstrated reusability of the biomass makes it an economically feasible approach.”

High recovery rates

The group was able to recover more than 50% of aluminum, more than 40% of copper, and more than 70% of zinc from the test metal solutions. Over 50% of copper and over 90% of zinc were retrieved from the polymetallic waste stream they tested the yeast on.

Changing the temperature had little impact on efficiency, except for zinc, where it raised the recovery rate by 7.6%. Similarly, adjusting the pH had a limited effect on most of the metal solutions, except for aluminum, where it improved the recovery efficiency by 16%.

“The metals can be removed from the yeast surface by acid treatment and thus could be recycled,” Sieber said. “It would be interesting to investigate potential applications for these reclaimed metals.”

The yeast itself could also be recycled without heavily impacting its ability to recover metal: the scientists were able to use it five times to recover different metals.

The team, however, cautions that the new process needs testing with much larger studies in real-life conditions before it can be implemented on an industrial scale.

“The metal removal process in this study was optimized for the four metals in question,” Kremser said. “The concentration of potentially interfering metal ions was very low in our starting solutions, but this would be important to consider when applying this approach to different mixed metal solutions.”

The funds will be used to support a pilot project to process 5,000 kg per day of raw materials into approximately 2,500 kg of extracted platinum group metals per year.

Founded in 2020, pH7 is headquartered in Vancouver and was recently listed on the Cleantech Group’s 2024 Global Cleantech 100. The new process enables efficient metal extraction from low-grade resources or difficult substrates in a cost-effective way, it said.

The company has created a proprietary closed-loop process using advanced chemistry to extract and refine critical metals that will help the mining sector transition to renewable energy in an environmentally and economically sustainable way, the ministry of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation said in a news release.

Metal alloys including platinum group metals, copper and tin produced by pH7 are then refined by industrial customers. This method results in significantly less greenhouse gas emissions, electricity and water usage compared to mining or other recycling methods.

“BC is home to a growing clean-energy sector, accounting for 20% of Canada’s world-leading cleantech firms that are having positive impacts globally,” Josie Osborne, Minister of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation, said.

“With near net-zero environmental impact in the extraction of critical metals and minerals, pH7 is demonstrating the kind of innovative thinking that can transform mining around the world.”

Since 2008, the ICE Fund has committed approximately C$112 million ($83m) to support pre-commercial clean-energy technology projects, clean-energy vehicles, research and development, and energy-efficiency programs.

“The clean, green future we envision requires more critical metals than we have access to currently,” said Mohammad Doostmohammadi, founder and CEO of pH7 Technologies.

“Through innovation and collaboration, we look forward to bringing our cleantech solution to help scale the extraction of metals and make existing processes much more sustainable and cost-effective.”

In a paper published in the journal Solar RRL, the researchers explain that the process involves creating metallic ‘clusters’ of just nine gold atoms chemically ‘anchored’ to titanium dioxide which, in turn, drives the reaction by converting the energy of absorbed UV light.

The gold nanocluster cocatalysts enhance the photocatalytic work of the titanium dioxide and reduce the time required to complete the reaction by a factor of six.

“These types of heterogeneous semiconductor-mediated photocatalysis systems provide a significant advantage over other advanced chemical processes,” Gunther Andersson, senior author of the study, said in a media statement. “It can facilitate the mineralization of a large range of organic pollutants, like azo dyes, into water and carbon dioxide molecules with a high degradation efficiency.”

Methyl orange

Andersson explained that a variety of physical, chemical and biological processes are currently used to remove carcinogenic and recalcitrant organic compounds from water. This is because chemical industries, including dye manufacture, and textile and cosmetics production, release toxic and non-biodegradable dyes into the environment.

Nearly half of the dyes used in the textile and dye industry are azo dyes. Methyl orange – one of the most common indicators used in analytical chemistry to determine pH – is among the widely used water-soluble azo dyes.

With this in mind, the researchers have also demonstrated the usefulness of the gold cluster cocatalyst and modified semiconductors for the synthesis of novel photocatalysis systems for the degradation of methyl orange.

In a second study, published in Applied Surface Science, they tested photocatalysis in a vortex fluidic device developed at Flinders University.

They wanted to address the issue of traditional treatment methods often not effectively removing dangerous contaminants from wastewater.

“The reason for this is that some chemicals, especially those with aromatic rings, are resistant to chemical, photochemical and biological degradation,” Anahita Motamedisade, lead author of the paper, said.

“In addition, they generate dangerous byproducts – by oxidizing, hydrolyzing, or undergoing other chemical reactions – of synthetic dyes containing wastewater, which are detectable wherever they are disposed of. We hope to build onto these more sustainable and thorough photocatalytic degradation processes to help completely remove the toxins and tackle this global problem.”

The gold producer, with operations in Mali, Guinea and Liberia, called Corica’s move “a clear breach of the mining contract” as it alleges the contractor “failed to meet mining contract volumes due to delays in mining equipment mobilization, commissioning, and overall operating performance”.

Hummingbird issued a notice to Corica on Monday, demanding the resumption of mining by the end of Tuesday. The company warned that if the contractor failed to do so, it might step in to resume mining operations, or work with alternative suppliers.

According to Corica, Hummingbird Resources owes it $27 million for work already completed. It noted the measure remains conditional and reversible provided the miner pays the pending invoices and provides a Deed of Company Guarantee by April 7.

“Corica has over two decades of history in contracting with major clients and is proud to have had zero litigation to this date,” it said in the statement.

Hummingbird issued late on Wednesday a response to Corica, disputing the accuracy of the amount owed and the need for payment.

“Since the inception of the contract in September 2022, Corica has consistently underperformed against established contractual performance targets, failing to meet the mining contract volumes principally due to delays in mobilizing mining equipment, commissioning the equipment, as well as recruitment and training,” Hummingbird said.

The miner argues it has been cooperating with Corica in good faith since July 2023, when it informed the contractor of a contract breach due to the operation’s underperformance.

Kouroussa, Hummingbird’s second operating mine, achieved first gold pour in June 2023 and it is expected to churn out an average of 120,000 to 140,000 ounces of gold for the first three years of commercial production. After that, Kouroussa would average 100,000 ounces of gold a year over an initial seven-year life. 

Hummingbird took on a $55 million loan with Coris Bank in September, pledging to cut $122.8 million in debt over three years starting with a $77 million debt repayment by the end of this year. 

The miner also raised $30 million mainly through a share placement at an average price of 11.26 pence per share with shareholders, including 45% shareholder CIG, an investment bank.

Hummingbird agreed at the time to hedge 30,000 ounces of gold, which represents about 15% of its total production. This decision was made amid soaring bullion prices, which hit a new all-time high of $2,195.15 per ounce on March 8.

The miner has faced challenges in bringing the Kouroussa mine up to full production. Aside the ongoing issues with Corica, activities at the mine were disrupted last year by rain and delays associated with skill development.

On Tuesday, Salinity announced it has secured an initial investment of $1.27 million to fund the next stage of its growth. It now joins industry-leading companies like Altilium Clean Technology and Electric Era under the SQM Lithium Ventures portfolio.

Salinity is the developer of a groundbreaking “batch reverse osmosis” water treatment technology – the first in the world to be manufactured commercially – to dramatically reduce the environmental impact of water treatment.

This technology uses less energy, purifies a higher amount of wastewater, generates less waste, and is more compact and portable than traditional reverse osmosis systems. The first of Salinity’s five registered patents has been approved in the European Union, China and the United States.

Since launching in 2021, Salinity has completed trials in multiple industries, including lithium mining, industrial and municipal wastewater, and food production. The company has built a strong sales pipeline across multiple sectors and geographies.

“SQM’s investment will help us accelerate Salinity’s growth and achieve our 2024 goals of increasing unit sales and securing our first licensing agreement. Their strategic interests in lithium and water, combined with their geographical reach from Chile to China, offer a perfect fit to support our ambitious growth plans,” Salinity Solutions CEO Richard Bruges said in a news release.

The investment, according to SQM, goes hand-in-hand with the Chilean group’s ongoing drive to improve efficiency and reduce its environmental impact as part of its sustainability goals. These include reducing the use of groundwater by 40% by 2030, decreasing brine extraction in the Salar de Atacama by 20% in 2023 and 50% by 2030, and becoming carbon neutral in lithium production by 2030.

As part of their collaboration with SQM, the Salinity Solutions team will run a pilot project in the Salar de Atacama, with its team members based in Antofagasta and other locations in the north of Chile.

 “SQM Lithium Ventures is investing in Salinity Solutions in hopes that the company, through its revolutionary technology, will be capable of scaling and making an impact across different industries and geographies,” said Angeles Romo, director of SQM Lithium Ventures.

“This marks our first investment in water, one of our core focus areas for investment along with lithium and electromobility.”

The existing partnership was established in August 2022, when Sumitomo adopted the MineHub’s blockchain-based platform for its copper concentrates business. Before that, the companies had been working to bring more efficiency, transparency and responsibility to industrial supply chains.

“By joining forces to drive commercial traction and integrating Sumitomo’s refined copper business onto our platform, we are poised to unlock new opportunities for growth and innovation in the metals industry,” MineHub CEO said in a news release.

“We believe that integrating our refined copper business onto the MineHub platform will not only streamline our operations, but also enhance our ability to serve our customers effectively,” Takeshi Ishimaru, general manager of Sumitomo’s non-ferrous metals and raw material unit, added.

The Japanese trading house expects to integrate its refined copper business onto the MineHub platform starting with key customers in the Asian market.

The Dutch suit is being pursued by law firms Pogust Goodhead and Lemstra Van der Korst against Vale and Samarco Iron Ore Europe, a marketing unit of the Samarco JV, which was responsible for operating the dam. 

Pogust Goodhead, which is also involved in the UK case against BHP, told the Financial Times on Tuesday the firm was acting on behalf of 77,000 individuals, nearly 1,000 businesses, and seven municipalities.

BHP is already dealing with a major class action lawsuit from around 700,000 claimants in the UK related to the same incident. The rupture of the Fundão mining waste facility on November 2015 resulted in 19 fatalities and pollution of waterways that reached the Atlantic Ocean, more than 650 km (400 miles) away. 

According to Vale, the Renova foundation, which the companies have been using to pay for some of the damages caused by the fatal dam collapse, had recieved 34.7 billion reais ($6.9 billion) in socioeconomic and environmental compensation as of December 2023.

A Brazilian court ruled in January that Samarco, Vale, and BHP had to pay $47.6 billion reals ($9.44bn) in compensation for the dam collapse. Both Vale and BHP have stated that they may appeal this decision.

That ruling did not apply to individual victims, Pogust Goodhead said in January.

The miner said on Tuesday it had inked signed definitive agreements with a group of international lenders, including the Japan Bank for International Cooperation, Export Development Canada, the Export-Import Bank of Korea and several commercial lenders for the term loan. The financing has a four-year drawdown period and a 12-year term, Antofagasta said.

“The Centinela Second Concentrator project is a prime example of how Antofagasta can unlock value from its portfolio and our dedication to sustainable and responsible copper production,” chief executive Ivan Arriaga said in the statement.

The company has also signed a separate agreement granting Centinela the option to obtain water for its current and future operations from an international consortium. This group would acquire Centinela’s existing water supply system and extend it to serve the second concentrator. The international consortium is in the process of finalizing its financing to fulfill this agreement within the year.

As part of this deal, Centinela will transfer its current water transportation assets and rights for about $600 million to be received in 2024. The consortium will handle the construction and related capital expenses amounting to $380 million for the planned expansion of the water transportation system.

The $4.4 billion second concentrator at Centinela, whose construction was approved in December 2023, is expected to start operations in 2027.

In a study published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, the authors demonstrated the diagnostic and therapeutic potential of the nanoparticles on the teeth and wounded skin of rats and mice, eliminating the biofilms in as little as one minute and outperforming common antimicrobials.

“With this platform, you can bust biofilms without surgically debriding infections, which can be necessary when using antibiotics,” Luisa Russell, a program director in the Division of Discovery Science & Technology at the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB), said in a media statement. “Plus, this method could treat patients if they are allergic to antibiotics or are infected by strains that are resistant to medication. The fact that this method is antibiotic-free is a huge strength.”

Oral biofilms, also known as plaques, formed by bacteria such as Streptococcus mutans can cause significant tooth decay. Wound infections, which are commonly caused by Staphylococcus bacteria, can greatly delay the healing process. In either case, the densely packed network of proteins and carbohydrates within biofilms can prevent antibiotics from reaching microbes throughout the affected area.

But that isn’t the extent of the issue posed by biofilms. Not only are they difficult to remove, but they are troublesome to discern in the first place.

Gold to the rescue

This new research identified a solution to knock out both problems with one stone: gold.

Gold is nontoxic and readily converts energy from light sources into heat, making it a prime candidate for photothermal therapy, a strategy that utilizes the heat from nanoparticles to kill nearby pathogens.

In addition to generating heat, the nanoparticles emit detectable ultrasound waves in response to light, meaning that gold particles can be visualized using a technique called photoacoustic imaging.

In the new study, the authors encapsulated gold spheres within larger golden cage-shaped nanoparticles to optimize their response to light for both therapeutic and imaging purposes. To make the particles appealing to bacteria, they coated them in dextran, a carbohydrate that is a common building block of biofilms.

The researchers assessed their strategy by applying the gold nanoparticles atop S. mutans-infected teeth from ex vivo rat jaws.

In a photoacoustic imaging test on the teeth, the nanoparticles emitted signals that came through loud and clear, allowing the team to see precisely where biofilms had taken up the dextran-coated particles on the teeth.

Then, to evaluate the particles’ therapeutic effect, they irradiated the teeth with a laser. For comparison, they treated other infected teeth samples with the topical antiseptic chlorhexidine.

One hundred per cent effective

The team observed that the photothermal therapy was nearly 100% effective at killing biofilms, while chlorhexidine did not significantly diminish the viability of bacteria.

“The treatment method is especially fast for the oral infection. We applied the laser for one minute, but really in about 30 seconds we’re killing basically all of the bacteria,” Maryam Hajfathalian, a professor of biomedical engineering at the New Jersey Institute of Technology and the study’s first author, said.

Evaluations conducted on mice with open wounds in their skin, infected with Staphylococcus aureus, were similarly successful, as heat generated by nanoparticles greatly outperformed another antimicrobial agent called gentamicin. Here, the researchers also measured and noted a rise in temperature of 20°C localized to the biofilm, not causing any apparent damage to surrounding tissue.

The authors indicate that with further tests they aim to show whether the strategy can prevent cavities or speed up healing.

“I think it’s important to see how inexpensive, straightforward, and fast this process is. Since we are limited in using antibiotics, we need novel treatments like this as a replacement,” Hajfathalian said.

According to the study, confidence in the world’s ability to achieve net zero by 2050 seems to be eroding as it becomes more difficult to ensure adequate investment returns and progress diverges in a fragmenting world. This view is consistent across most regions and is most strongly held among people working in the oil and gas sector.

Bain & Company surveyed over 600 industry executives in mining, oil and gas, utilities, chemicals and agribusinesses across the globe to better understand their views on the energy transition, new technologies, and investment opportunities, and where they see the greatest challenges for decarbonization.

“This year’s survey found that energy and natural resource companies have not dampened ambitions for their transition-oriented growth businesses. However, customers’ willingness to pay is a growing issue, as is the ability to generate adequate return on investment (ROI) in energy transition-oriented projects. As a result, companies are focusing on projects with a viable ROI path,” said Joe Scalise, head of Bain & Company’s energy and natural resource practice. “The longer the executives are at the front lines of the energy transition, the more sober they are getting about the transition’s practical realities.”

The survey points out that executives in the Middle East (61%), Asia-Pacific (55%), and Latin America (51%) are feeling more optimistic about the prospects of their transition-oriented growth such as renewables, hydrogen, bio-based products, and lithium and other transition commodities that will contribute to their company’s valuation and profits by 2030. Hence, they are maintaining or increasing green investments. Only 4%, 12% and 10%, respectively, of executives from the three regions expressed less optimism, while the remainder showed no significant change.

The survey revealed a more balanced picture in Europe where 30% of executives revealed more optimism vs. 27% who were less optimistic about their new energy growth business areas contributing to the bottom line.

In North America, 29% of executives were more positive compared to 17% who were less positive on their transition-related growth areas.

Returns to scale-up

“Like last year, executives say the greatest obstacle to scaling up their transition-oriented businesses is finding enough customers willing to pay higher prices (or having equivalent policy support) to create sufficient return on investment,” the report states. “In fact, the share of executives identifying this as a very significant roadblock jumped 14 percentage points from 2023 to 2024, to 70% of executives.”

The experts behind the study note that the direct impact of higher interest rates on the cost of transition projects is likely shaping executives’ perspective on the challenges associated with customer willingness to pay. 

Bain has found that higher rates put upward pressure on the effective cost of low-carbon projects and a 500-basis-point increase in the cost of capital can increase the total annual revenue required to finance a project by as much as 50%.

Trendy North America

The survey presents North America as an emerging leader for green investments as 79% of all executives view it as an attractive region for energy transition investments. The next most attractive region is Europe at 65%. 

Australia and New Zealand come in as second runner-ups at 43%. 

Even as increasing government subsidies make some regions, such as North America, more attractive for investment, executives have growing concerns about policy stability.

The US Inflation Reduction Act is a major factor in North America’s investment attractiveness, but factors such as the availability of relatively low-cost natural gas feedstock also influenced the result. 

“However, while almost two-thirds of US executives surveyed agree that the IRA’s subsidies target the right areas, less than one-quarter believe that the policy regime will remain stable over the next five to 10 years,” the dossier states. “Furthermore, 42% of US executives think the IRA’s subsidies are unclear and that the rules are not easy to follow.”

About 70% of executives worldwide say that reducing policy uncertainty would very significantly improve their ability to scale up transition-oriented businesses.

According to CSIRO’s space program director Kimberley Clayfield, a major challenge in the development of spacecraft is low-mass, high-efficiency power systems.  

“CSIRO’s printed flexible solar cells could provide a reliable, lightweight energy solution for future space operations and exploration,” Clayfield said in a media statement. “If the space flight test reveals similar performance as we’ve shown in the lab, this technology offers significant advantages over traditional silicon-based solar.”

Eight mini-modules of printed flexible solar cells were attached to the surface of Space Machine Company’s Optimus-1 satellite.

“CSIRO researchers have been working for many years to improve our solar cell performance using perovskite – an advanced material that is highly efficient in converting sunlight into energy,” CSIRO renewable energy systems group leader, Anthony Chesman, said. “Our perovskite cells have been achieving incredible outcomes on earth and we’re excited that they’ll soon be showcasing their potential in space.”

Chesman noted that in situ testing would secure information on the performance of the perovskite cells as they orbit the planet. 

“We will get information on how the panels are holding up under the extreme conditions in space and data on the efficiency they achieve,” he said. “Based on our research, we expect our printed flexible solar cells will stand up to the effects of cosmic electron and gamma radiation which can compromise the performance and integrity of traditional solar cells.”

The researcher pointed out that the team is confident these cells will outperform traditional cells in cases where sunlight hits them at non-optimal angles.  

“The feedback we receive from the satellite will provide valuable insights into the practical application of our technology and inform future technology development,” Chesman said. “This is a great opportunity for Australian technology to contribute to global space exploration. We are eager to collaborate with potential partners to explore this further.”

Graphjet’s warrants will also be delisted from the Nasdaq and begin trading on the OTC as GTIWW. The transaction, the company says, creates the only pure-play publicly traded direct biomass-to-graphite company, establishing Graphjet as the leading source of graphite and graphene for the US market.

Graphjet raised $5.8 million through the transaction, and it anticipates that additional fundraising will be necessary to accelerate its growth strategy and expand its manufacturing capacity.

Graphjet’s technology uses eco-sensitive methods in a circular solution using waste and its processes eliminate emissions and pollutions, it said. The company has a $30 million offtake agreement with Toyoda Gosei and has accelerated the timeline for its planned manufacturing plant in Malaysia.

“We are thrilled to list Graphjet on the Nasdaq, particularly at this crucial moment of critical material demand and limited availability for the US market,” CEO Aiden Lee said in a press release.

“With China dominating more than 97% of all graphite production, we look forward to becoming the leading supplier to the US market to support its burgeoning battery storage and EV industries,” Lee said.

“Our patented technologies are capable of producing graphite and graphene directly from agricultural waste, which fills a critical supply need for these highly strategic materials, as demand is expected to continue to accelerate over the next several years.”

Graphjet said its commercial and patented vertically integrated technologies and process cuts the carbon footprint by 83% while reducing costs by 80%.

Graphjet’s stock advanced on the Nasdaq on Friday during a generally down day in the US market, affording the company a $1.76 billion market capitalization.

The opening ceremony, hosted by Weir’s CEO Jon Stanton, was attended by a senior leadership team from Xuzhou Hi-Tech Industry Zone and other members of Weir and its ESCO division from China and across the globe.

Occupying a 16.5-acre site in Xuzhou’s High-Tech Industrial Zone, the new foundry features the latest technology and equipment, incorporating high levels of automation. These enable the optimisation of capacity and enhance foundry processes, improving efficiency and further reducing costs of manufacture.

The new foundry represents a $60 million investment and will replace Weir’s existing foundry located close by.

The company retained its skilled and loyal workforce – many of whom have been with Weir since foundry operations in Xuzhou in 2006.

For seven years, Ashley Shade and Samuel Barnett have been studying soil microbial communities in Centralia, Pennsylvania. The town is the site of an underground coal mine fire that has been burning since 1962 at depths of up to 90 metres over a 13-kilometre stretch of 15 square kilometres. Estimations state that, at its current rate, it could continue to burn for over 250 years.

The Centralia fire started accidentally when efforts to clean a landfill ignited the adjacent mine, and it has been burning continuously since then. As the fire burns, it moves through the abandoned underground mine shaft, heating the soil above it as it travels. It is considered a ‘press disturbance,’ meaning, a long-term, continuous, human-caused disturbance as the heat from the fire changes the structure of the microbial communities.

From 2015 to 2021, the researchers selected sampling sites along the fire’s path and examined the soil before, during, and after being heated. The team also sampled nearby sites that were completely unaffected by the fire.

“We go out every October and we take soil cores,” Barnett explained. “We have a big PVC pipe that we sterilize and drive into the soil and pull out about 20 centimetres or 8 inches of soil. Then we sieve the soil to get rid of roots and rocks and the stuff we don’t want and then freeze it in liquid nitrogen and bring it to the lab.”

The next step was to extract bacterial DNA and RNA. They sequenced the DNA to determine which types of bacteria were present. They then looked at the ratio of RNA to DNA to determine which bacteria are biologically active and which are dormant.

“Dormant is a word for a reversible state of activity that many life forms assume at some point. It’s a really important strategy to help organisms withstand stress in their environment,” Shade said.

“An incredible number of soil microbes are simply not active and functioning at any given time. This is an important point because the active microbes are the ones that contribute to ecosystem functions. I think this is special about this study because most research does not consider this question of who’s active and who’s not.”

The researchers infused this perspective into the recovery of microbial communities.

“If we can understand what wakes up the dormant microbes, we can try to manage the microbiome, for example, to wake up when we need it to wake up, to go to sleep potentially when we need it to go to sleep,” Shade said.

The scientists pointed out that microbes – tens of thousands of which live in soil – are vital to maintaining healthy, fertile soil, which, in turn, is vital to the overall health of ecosystems. Thus, they hope their findings spur additional research into the development of strategies for microbiome restoration for ecosystems impacted by climate change and other press disturbances.

In a paper published in the journal Chemical Science, Johannes Fessler explains that each of these three chemical elements has the potential to replace several noble metals that are commonly employed in organic chemistry to catalyze fine chemicals.

As an example, Fessler describes a complex active ingredient candidate based on pyrrole, a common drug precursor, which can be created from “simple starting materials” with the help of an acid-tolerant homogeneous iron catalyst and at room temperature.

“Homogeneous” catalysis means that the starting materials – catalyst, solvent and ultimately the product and by-product – are dissolved in a single reaction vessel. They must therefore be separated after each reaction step, purified and prepared for the next step.

“If you manage to save one of these steps in the chemical process, you greatly reduce the amount of time and material required and minimize waste,” Fessler said in a media statement.

This is precisely what he achieved with the reaction to pyrrole, using a reaction cascade.

Climate-neutral chemical industry

Replacing noble metals as catalysts with iron and the like has become an attractive research topic.

“The task of climate-neutral, sustainable management is facing the chemical industry as well as all other sectors,” the researcher said.

Iron is abundant, making up 5% of the earth’s crust. And after iron and titanium, manganese is the most common transition metal on the planet.

On the other hand, there is a reason why base metals have so far only played a marginal role in organic chemistry.

“They are often less stable in catalytic processes than catalysts made of noble metals,” Fessler explained. “In addition, they usually work at high temperatures and pressures in the area I am researching.”

However, such harsh conditions would destroy the complex molecules in drug production. The chemical structures that ensure the specific effect of a drug, the so-called functional groups in the molecule, are particularly at risk.

In this respect, it is a success to show how catalysts made of iron, manganese and cobalt can sometimes manage with significantly milder reaction conditions compared to previous practice. In the case of pyrrole, these are temperatures between 20 and 30 degrees Celsius.

Johannes Fessler’s experiments revealed another advantage of his approach: His non-noble metal catalysts very precisely converted only those molecules that the chemists needed in the actual synthesis. “We call this approach highly selective. It produces hardly any by-products or waste,” he said.

The scientist tested the reliable functioning of his reaction on various active ingredients and drug precursors.

“We wanted to make sure that the iron catalyst also activates the right place in the molecule for these substances and spares the sensitive functional groups,” he noted.

In this way, the chemist tested his method on widely used cholesterol-lowering drugs and blood pressure medications, among others.

In a paper published in the journal Advanced Materials, soft condense matter scientist Raffaele Mezzenga and his team explain how using a sponge made from a protein matrix, they have successfully extracted gold from electronic waste in an energy-efficient fashion.

To manufacture the sponge, Mohammad Peydayesh, a senior scientist in Mezzenga’s group, and his colleagues denatured whey proteins under acidic conditions and high temperatures so they aggregated into protein nanofibrils in a gel. The scientists then dried the gel, creating a sponge out of these protein fibrils.

To recover gold in the lab experiment, the team salvaged the electronic motherboards from 20 old computers and extracted the metal parts. They dissolved these parts in an acid bath to ionize the metals.

When they placed the protein fibre sponge in the metal ion solution, the gold ions adhered to the protein fibres. Other metal ions can also adhere to the fibres, but gold ions do so very efficiently.

As the next step, the researchers heated the sponge. This reduced the gold ions into flakes, which the scientists subsequently melted down into a gold nugget. In this way, they obtained a nugget of around 450 milligrams out of the 20 computer motherboards. The nugget was 91% gold, which corresponds to 22 carats. The remainder was made out of copper.

Mezzenga’s calculations show that the technology is commercially viable, as procurement costs for the source materials added to the energy costs for the entire process are 50 times lower than the value of the gold that can be recovered.

Next, the researchers want to develop the technology to ready it for the market.

Although electronic waste is the most promising starting product from which they want to extract gold, there are other possible sources. These include industrial waste from microchip manufacturing or gold-plating processes. In addition, the scientists plan to investigate whether they can manufacture the protein fibril sponges out of other protein-rich byproducts or waste products from the food industry.

“The fact I love the most is that we’re using a food industry byproduct to obtain gold from electronic waste,” Mezzenga said in a media statement. “You can’t get much more sustainable than that!”

The mines operated for over 100 years in Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago between mainland Norway and the North Pole and one of the world’s northernmost inhabited areas. They were specifically situated 77° North of the Equator.

The operation shut down in 2015 and, at the same time, landscape restoration of the mining settlement and infrastructure, stretching more than 20 kilometres from the sea up to 700 metres above sea level, was started. Enabling both dynamic ecological and geomorphological processes was the focus of the landscape restoration once roads, housing, industrial facilities, landfills and quarries were removed.

Where vegetation cover in Svalbard is sparse and slow-growing, the geological processes, such as glacial, slope, fluvial and coastal, are highly active. Thus, facilitating geodiversity meant keeping in mind that the abiotic conditions support a mosaic of vegetation cover and habitats, as well as landscape character.

“When targeting the reconstruction and design of post-mining landscapes, there is a risk of neglecting the dynamic geomorphological processes,” Dagmar Hagen, senior researcher at the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research and co-author of the paper, said in a media statement. “Rather than designing a new landscape, we argue that preparing the future landscape for active geological processes will align with the overall ideas of nature restoration.”

Hagen explained that a multidisciplinary approach in planning such large-scale restoration in the High Arctic was crucial to understanding the relationships between ecological and geomorphological processes and to propose the best possible solutions. Placing geomorphology, botany, and landscape knowledge at the core was key, as was keeping in mind their connections to cultural heritage and pollution management.

The extensive restoration effort at Svea also required a consensus on restoration principles among all participants, from project leaders to all personnel working on the ground. To foster a common understanding, all personnel participated in “green training,” gaining insights into the landscape, geodiversity, biodiversity, and restoration standards.

“Ultimately, the people operating excavators, bulldozers, and dump trucks carry out the restoration work and shape the new landscape, and a significant portion of the positive results should be attributed to their efforts,” Hagen said.

“We believe that the success of a restoration project of this size depends on a multidisciplinary approach, including all aspects of the management of the mine’s interior, pollution, cultural heritage, and natural diversity.”

Assessed by researchers at James Cook University, the automated approach to large-scale road mapping uses convolutional neural networks trained on road data.

According to the scientists, many roads in developing countries, both legal and illegal, are unmapped, with road-mapping studies in the Brazilian Amazon, Asia-Pacific and elsewhere regularly finding up to 13 times more road length than reported in government or road databases.

Previous studies, on the other hand, have shown that earth is experiencing an unprecedented wave of road building, with some 25 million kilometres of new paved roads expected by mid-century.

“Traditionally, road mapping meant tracing road features by hand, using satellite imagery. This is incredibly slow, making it almost impossible to stay on top of the global road tsunami,” Bill Laurance, senior author of the study published in the journal Remote Sensing, said in a media statement.

Laurance explained that he and his colleagues trained three machine-learning models to automatically map road features from high-resolution satellite imagery covering rural, generally remote and often forested areas of Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and Malaysia.

“This study shows the remarkable potential of AI for large-scale tasks like global road-mapping. We’re not there yet, but we’re making good progress,” he said. “Proliferating roads are probably the most important direct threat to tropical forests globally. In a few more years, AI might give us the means to map and monitor roads across the world’s most environmentally critical areas.”

The firm, which owns and operates 57.5% of the Escondida, the world’s largest copper mine, and has other producing and exploration assets in the country, including the Spence and Cerro Colorado mines, says female presence in its operations is more than double the national industry average of 15%.

Back in 2016, when BHP had only 17.5% female presence globally, the mining giant set a public goal to achieve gender balance by 2025.

“Gender parity was a goal that many believed impossible. Today, at BHP Americas, we can proudly confirm that we have achieved 40% female representation, one year ahead of schedule,” BHP Americas president Rag Udd said in a statement.

“We are aware that this journey does not end here. Although gender balance is important, it is vital that we focus on creating an inclusive culture, in which everyone can contribute with their full potential,” Udd noted.

At Escondida alone, BHP employs 1,509 women out of 3,935 workers. 

The company says that increased female representation at its operations is a result of the implementation of policies addressing gender pay gaps, the promotion of labour flexibility, as well as training and talent retention initiatives. The company notes that adapting operational infrastructure to better suit the needs of women has also been a factor in the equation.

A recent report by the CCM-Eleva Alliance, a joint initiative between Chile’s Mining Council and Fundacion Chile, analyzed workforce trends and the challenges 27 mining and supplier companies are facing.

One of the report’s main conclusions is that female participation in the labour market sits below those of developed countries. When it comes to decision-making across the mining industry, however, women accounted for 17% in 2022. This means country is better positioned in terms of women’s participation in the mining industry than Peru, and at the same level as the United States.

The mining industry’s treatment of women came under increased scrutiny in 2002, when the government of West Australia published the results of an inquiry that revealed “horrific” incidents at remote projects. 

At Rio Tinto (ASX, LON: RIO), more than a quarter of female workers experienced sexual harassment and bullying, the company revealed in 2022.

The same investigation revealed that BHP recorded 91 reports of alleged sexual harassment or assault in the year through June 30, 2021, of which 79 were substantiated. 

The mining giant, which completed in 2023 a A$300 million ($191 million) project to make its mining villages in Western Australia safer by adding extra CCTV cameras, security lighting, doors and fences, saw a 20% increase in reported sexual harassment last year.

If you’re a long term reader you’ll know I’ve framed tech in a rather sceptical light. 

Perhaps unfairly. 

But when it comes to liquidity in the financial system… There’s only so much dosh that can go around, especially within the riskiest part of the market.

And to that end, capital tends to flow into the hottest and most exciting trends.

For the moment tech dominates the minds of speculative investors. 

Drilling a new mineral sands deposit doesn’t encapsulate the same excitement like sticking a microchip into a patient’s brain. 

That was one of the latest headline grabbing tech innovations from Elon Musk’s Neuralink, last month. 

In the battle for speculative capital, junior mining stocks continue to lag.

Yet, explorers now have to compete with a tech sector foaming on steroids… artificial intelligence.

The AI ‘revolution’ promises plenty of headline grabbing attention for the tech sector. That means even more speculative capital.

Most people believe higher prices will drive the junior mining sector higher. 

That’s a fair assumption. After all, metal prices tend to rise as a function of demand.

With rising demand, we’d expect capital to flow back to the explorers in a need to boost future supply. 

Yet, this simple equation is failing… Take gold.

Despite the metal trading just shy of its all-time highs over the last several months, junior gold stocks remain depressed. 

That’s especially so across the explorers. 

It begs the question, if higher metal prices can’t drive explorers higher, what will?

Discovery… the spark for speculation

Just like the old gold rushes from the past, a surge back toward junior mining stocks often begins with a major discovery. 

I’m not sure why that’s the case, but it seems to capture the imagination of investors looking to ride the next major find.

Take the Poseidon nickel eruption in 1969.

This was among the most prolific junior mining booms of all time.

In the late 1960’s the market was ripe for speculation… Nickel and copper prices were trading at elevated levels driven by the Vietnam War.

Yet that alone didn’t push junior mining stocks higher.

It was Poseidon’s major nickel discovery at Mount Windarra, in Western Australia, that finally broke the market shackles.

The rush was on.

Poseidon’s shares surged from around A$0.80 to A$12. Eventually the stock reached a precipitous peak of A$280. 

The impact of Poseidon’s discovery was far reaching.

The Australian ‘ASX All Mining index’ rose 44% from October to December 1969.

Numerous explorers and mining juniors experienced triple digit gains against the backdrop of Poseidon’s frenzy.   

So, how could the next junior mining speculative boom play out?

AI’s ‘disruption’ could be a blessing for explorers.

Just like the late 1960’s the stage is set.

Despite a bearish mantra, commodity prices are in fact high and well above the cyclical lows from 2016. 

Take nickel, a metal that’s been in the news for all the wrong reasons… Supported by investment from China, Indonesia has been able to tap into its vast nickel laterite deposits flooding the market with new supply.  

While prices have pulled back, they’re still far higher than back in 2016, a major cyclical low for the commodity market. 

Back then, the metal traded for just $7,100 per tonne.

Today it’s almost double, trading at almost $18,000 per tonne.

It’s a similar story for gold, precious metals and other industrial commodities. 

Have no doubt, today’s elevated commodity market is a ripe setting for junior mining speculation.

Yet, the next rush could have a rather ‘modern’ twist.

We’re already starting to see what this might look like.

Last week, Legacy Minerals (ASX: LGM) announced the discovery of a nickel-copper-iron sulphide deposit at its Fontenoy project in New South Wales.

According to the company, the discovery couldn’t have happened without the assistance of artificial intelligence.

Over the last several months the company has been sharing its data with San Francisco based, Earth AI.

The tech startup was able to generate high probability drill targets by feeding the company’s geological database into its proprietary software. 

Drill logs, aerial imagery, geophysics, historic assays, scientific geological reports. 

Data that would take geologists years to digest and process.

But Earth AI was able to spit out drill targets both quickly and accurately.   

To be clear, it’s still very early days in terms of AI’s permeation into the mineral discovery process.   

But this latest discovery offers tangible evidence of AI’s potential in exploration. 

According to Earth AI, it can analyse and process data up to 100 times faster than traditional methods.

And this start-up isn’t mincing its words in proclaiming itself as a major disruptor for the industry…

“The discovery in Fontenoy, the second for us after the recent discovery of a greenfield molybdenum deposit, confirms that the future of mining lies in our technology.”

No doubt, the landscape is changing.

A geological land grab?

If the probability of discovery begins to levitate higher on the back of AI-driven software, just think about the opportunities available for companies holding prospective land?

AI could spark a sudden re-rating among explorers holding tenements in geological hot spots. 

That would cause speculators to pile into companies with the best geological turf.

If AI lives up to the hype, expect a tidal wave of tech capital chasing a new boom in the mineral discovery/AI partnership. 

Perhaps on a scale rivalling the Poseidon nickel surge of the late 1960’s.

Could artificial intelligence be the spark that finally ignites explorers back to life?

From competitor to partner, AI looks set to join forces with the junior mining sector in a big way. 

Two high growth adrenaline fuelled sectors, the old and the new, combining to spark a new era in mineral discovery. 

It’ll certainly be an interesting space to watch.

James Cooper runs the commodities investment service Diggers and Drillers. You can follow him on X @JCooperGeo.

The study included energy efficiency audits that helped identify a savings potential of 17.4% across a fleet of 800 motors.

The research, conducted between 2022 and 2023, followed an agreement between ABB and CERN. This saw the partners developing a roadmap for reducing the energy consumption of the site’s cooling and ventilation system via data-driven energy efficiency audits.

The audits identified potential annual energy savings of up to 31 gigawatt-hours (GWh). If achieved, these savings could be enough to power more than 18,000 European households and could avoid four kilotons of CO2 emissions, the same as planting over 420,000 trees.

Energy efficiency audits work by evaluating the performance and efficiency of motors based on their operational data. Audits help large facilities like CERN to identify the most significant energy-saving opportunities across whole fleets of motors.

CERN and ABB experts assessed data from motors in various cooling and ventilation applications. They combined data from multiple sources, including digitally connected motors, CERN’s SCADA system and data gathered directly from their pumps, piping, and instrumentation. The experts analyzed the efficiency of the whole system to provide insights to pinpoint the motors with the best business case for energy efficiency upgrades.

“We are proud to cooperate with CERN and support its ambition to conduct physics research with a low-carbon footprint, by helping them achieve more energy-efficient operations on their cooling and ventilation systems,” said Erich Labuda, president of the motion services division at ABB.

“This research project represents another step in CERN’s energy efficiency journey. As an institution with a large installed base of motors, working with CERN is a great example of how we can support in making a big impact in improving energy efficiency as part of the transition to a low-carbon society.”

In Labuda’s view, cooling and ventilation systems are a fantastic first place to look for energy efficiency upgrades because they are often overdesigned, being specified to operate at a maximum load way above the average.

“We found one pump motor at CERN with an energy-saving potential of 64%. It is also important to not just evaluate motor efficiency, but the system as a whole – including the fans, condensers and cooling towers. This holistic approach supports the improvement of CERN’s overall energy efficiency and reliability,” he said.

CERN’s next step is to create a roadmap for the upgrade of the first motors recommended as part of the energy efficiency audit, which are the IE5-rated Synchronous Reluctance Motors (SynRM) operating with variable speed drives. These motors will also be digitally connected, enabling condition monitoring solutions to accurately assess their health and performance to ensure maximum uptime.

The quest for substitutes for fossil fuels has increased the need for metals used in the batteries that power electric vehicles (EVs) and in green-energy applications. Minerals and metals such as cobalt, nickel, copper and manganese can be found in potato-sized nodules on the ocean floor. Reserves are estimated to be worth anywhere from $8 trillion to more than $16 trillion and they are in areas where companies, including deep-sea mining pioneer The Metals Company (NASDAQ: TMC), plan to target. 

According to the report, entitled “How to lose half a trillion” by non-profit Planet Tracker, extracting metals from the seafloor could cost the mining industry $30 to $132 billion in value destruction.

François Mosnier, head of Oceans and report lead author at Planet Tracker, told MINING.COM this estimate is the result of adding the combined value loss the activity would cause for both ocean floor and terrestrial miners.

“For the deep sea mining sector, focusing only on polymetallic nodules in international waters, the cost would reach $35 billion-$49 billion of value destruction,” Mosnier said. 

“This amount was computed based on the estimated invested capital in the sector in 2043 ($115 billion), the industry’s estimated return on invested capital (-2%) and the industry’s weighted average cost of capital (WACC) and long-term growth (3%).”

Put simply, the deep-sea mining industry would not beat the cost of the capital it requires to exist, he said.

“Before factoring in any environmental impacts, the economics already appear uncompelling,” Mosnier said. “High operating expenditures mean that returns will be negative for investors in deep sea mining, which will also destroy value in other sectors, such as terrestrial mining and fishing.”

On top of that, major global banks such Credit Suisse, Lloyds, NatWest, and Standard Chartered, Dutch bank ABN Amro, and Spanish group Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, have all introduced policies that rule out funding deep-sea exploration and extraction.

The report highlights the positive financial impact of respecting nature as sectors dependent on preserving intact ecosystems have outperformed those exploiting resources threefold over the last three decades.

It also urges investors to focus on nature preservation rather than resource extraction a repeats its call for a moratorium on deep-sea mining.

Ready to start

While the International Seabed Authority (ISA) has yet to set rules for the extraction of minerals and metals from the ocean floor, there already is a country that doesn’t need to wait: Norway.

The nation secured in December parliamentary majority to go ahead with plans to open the Arctic Ocean to seabed mineral exploration, despite environmental groups and the fishing industry’s warnings that the move would risk the biodiversity of vulnerable ecosystems.

The European country, where vast oil and gas reserves have made it one of the world’s wealthiest nations, plans to search for minerals on its extended continental shelf.

China is another nation investing heavily in deep-sea mining technology, including remotely operated vehicles, vessels, and sonar scanning systems.

Chinese companies, according to the Pentagon, hold more International Seabed Authority contracts (five out of 31 for exploration and development) than any other country.

Opponents to seafloor mining have long-warned that consequences of both exploration and extraction of minerals from the seabed are unknown and that more research should be conducted before going ahead.

Those that support the expansion of activity believe deep-sea mining is central to meeting the increasing demand of mineral growth. The demand for copper and rare earth metals is predicted to grow by 40%, according to the International Energy Agency. 

The agency also expects that the demand share for nickel, cobalt and lithium from clean energy technologies alone will grow by 60%, 70% and 90%, respectively. 

According to a study published in the Journal of Cleaner Production, producing battery metals from nodules could reduce emissions of CO² by 70-75%,  cut land use by 94% and eliminate 100% of solid waste.

According to the scientists, diamond is known for its high thermal conductivity, which is four to five times higher than that of copper. For this reason, it is a particularly interesting material when it comes to cooling power electronics in electric transportation, photovoltaics or storage systems.

Until now, heat sinks made of copper or aluminum plates have increased the heat-emitting surface of components that produce heat, thus preventing damage due to overheating. But the new nano-membranes made from synthetic diamonds that are thinner than a human hair can be integrated directly into electronic components to cool the power electronics in electric vehicles, which transfer traction energy from the battery to the electric motor and convert the current from direct current to alternating current.

These flexible, electrically insulating nano-membranes have the potential to reduce the local heat load of electronic components, such as current regulators in electric motors, thus increasing the energy efficiency, service life and road performance of electric vehicles.

When used in the charging infrastructure, the diamond membranes also contribute to charging speeds that are five times higher than the current average.

The researchers pointed out that, generally speaking, applying a copper layer underneath the component improves the heat flow. However, there is an electrically insulating oxide or nitride layer between the copper and the component, which has poor thermal conductivity.

“We want to replace this intermediate layer with our diamond nanomembrane, which is extremely effective at transferring heat to the copper, as diamonds can be processed into conductive paths,” Matthias Mühle, head of the Diamond Technologies group at the Fraunhofer US Center Midwest CMW, said in a media statement. “As our membrane is flexible and free-standing, it can be positioned anywhere on the component or the copper or integrated directly into the cooling circuit.”

Mühle and his team achieved this by growing the polycrystalline diamond nanomembrane on a separate silicon wafer, then detaching it, turning it over and etching away the back of the diamond layer. This results in a free-standing, smooth diamond that can be heated at a low temperature of 80°C and subsequently attached to the component.

“The heat treatment automatically bonds the micrometre-thick membrane to the electronic component. The diamond is then no longer free-standing but integrated into the system,” the expert said.

The nanomembrane can be produced on a wafer scale four inches and larger, making it well-suited for industrial applications.

According to Mühle, a patent has already been filed for the development. Application tests with inverters and transformers in application fields such as electric transportation and telecommunications are due to start this year.

The result of a strategic partnership between Tamarack and the Des Nedhe Group, the formation signifies a groundbreaking shift in procurement practices across Canada’s mining, industrial and construction sectors, Tamarack said.

By harnessing the specialized knowledge of the Des Nedhe Group, a First Nation-owned and operated organization dedicated to fostering economic development and empowerment within First Nations communities, Tamarack said the initiative aims to revolutionize the landscape of group purchasing, unlocking value for members and fostering sustainable, cost-effective practices.

Jordan Baptiste, a leader in Indigenous business development and the mining industry, will spearhead the newly formed GPO in Canada as managing director.

“Our aim is to provide our members with access to best-in-class suppliers, ensuring a cost-effective and secure supply chain that contributes to the sustainability of our business operations,” Baptiste said in a media statement.

Sean Willy, CEO of Des Nedhe, said the establishment of an accredited First Nations GPO represents a significant milestone in reshaping procurement within the Canadian mining and industrial sectors.

“This marks another pivotal moment in Canada’s journey toward sustainable resource and industrial development,” Tamarack CEO Ben-Schoeman Geldenhuys said.

“As we continue to grow our economy through mining, industrial development and construction, Tamarack remains committed to supporting our members’ growth through innovative group purchasing initiatives.”

The Mint is leveraging aXedras’ Bullion Integrity Ledger solution to further enhance its focus on being best-in-class for its supply chain and partner management and will help to provide an additional layer of assurance and transparency to the refinery’s operations, reinforcing the Mint’s reputation as a precious metal industry leader.

“By innovating with distributed ledger technology in our world-class refinery, we can now offer our customers end-to-end sourcing transparency, in addition to the industry-leading purity, quality and security of the gold we refine and of the bullion we produce,” said Marie Lemay, president and CEO of the Royal Canadian Mint.

This integration of DLT allows investors, financial institutions, dealers and distributors of Mint bullion products, as well as fabricators, to access secure, standardized and digitalized information about the provenance, and integrity of the production standards related to their products. Mines, recyclers and other precious metals suppliers whose material is refined by the Mint will benefit from numerous business‑to‑business process enhancements, such as seamless immutable data transfer, easy access to reports, audits and more.

There are two key aspects to the type and scope of data captured by DLT. The first is transfer/ownership custody, which will log the transfer and ownership of gold bullion, and the history will be available to anyone who has custody or ownership of the gold.

The second is transformation, meaning when the Mint processes the gold from rough deposit through refining. A provenance record for each gold bullion bar will allow the owner of the bar to view the origin of the gold within the bar. This could include fold of a specific origin such as a single mine, Canadian-mined gold, recycled gold, or co-mingled gold part of which is recovered during refining at the Mint.

Parties registered as platform users, such as refining clients, armoured car carriers/logistic providers, financial institutions, and bullion distributors and dealers, will be able to access this data directly.

Hitachi Energy’s advanced power electronics and digital charging technologies allow BluVein’s e-rail charging technology to deliver electricity safely and reliably to haul trucks of up to 400 tonnes while transporting materials.

The collaboration will fast-track the development of a high-powered, fast and flexible dynamic charging solution for surface and underground mines and quarries in Australia and across the globe. BluVein will focus on its leading-edge e-rail and connection of the truck, which Hitachi Energy will further complement with advanced power electronics and digital solutions to power and monitor the entire system.

“This strategic collaboration with BluVein will enable our mining customers to trial next-generation dynamic charging solutions vital for achieving net-zero emission targets without compromising on operating practices or productivity,” said Marco Berardi, head of grid and power quality solutions and service business at Hitachi Energy. “We believe this new collaborative approach will deliver on our common goal to accelerate the transition to all-electric mining and a carbon-neutral future.”

“This MoU supports BluVein’s mission of partnering with a technology leader to deliver a universal dynamic connector that facilitates the removal of fossil fuel from mines and help propel the industry globally to meet its decarbonization goals,” said James Oliver, CEO at BluVein. “Together, we are helping the industry move to a more sustainable and responsible future.”

Hitachi Energy and BluVein are also exploring the off-vehicle hardware requirements for BluVein1 for underground and smaller fleets, while actively co-operating on BluVein Proving Grounds currently under construction in Queensland, Australia.

BluVein systems in open pits are installed near the ground, making the job quick and modular. Deployment and relocation are fast and easy. Electricity is delivered from patented and proven safe slotted rail beside the truck, eliminating the need for overhead installation.

The BFT is the slimmest pump-through formation tester ever made, Zelandez said, and can analyze fluid underground in real-time and capture multiple clean lithium brine samples from a well for further testing.

It is designed to address lithium miners’ needs by measuring aquifer pressure, analyzing fluids downhole in real-time, and obtaining representative brine samples, the company said, adding that it reduces the costs of lithium brine development when compared to the less accurate incumbent ‘packer testing method’.

The BFT enables the lithium mining industry to conduct rigless pressure and permeability testing and fluid sampling in slim boreholes down to 122mm (PQ) and provides testing and sampling in low permeability, laminated, fractured, unconsolidated, and heterogeneous formations, the company said.

It enhances lithium miners’ decision-making by delivering real-time access to actionable aquifer data. Through enhanced definition of the complex sub-surfaces poor well deliverability is mitigated, and it enables miners to understand better and meet their reinjection requirements, Zelandez said, adding that developers no longer need to depend on large rig-deployed sampling to retrieve brine samples from below ground.

“The BFT was built to address the specific challenges of aquifer testing and fluid sampling in lithium brine exploration and production. Instead of it taking weeks, it delivers results within hours or days,” Zelandez CEO Gene Morgan said in a news release.

“While formation testers are commonplace in the oil and gas industry, their size and cost have made them impractical for use in the brine field,” Morgan said. “The BFT has miniaturized this technology for lithium miners.”

More information is here.

Graphjet, a developer of patented technologies to produce graphite and graphene directly from agricultural waste, announced Monday it has accelerated the timeline for its planned manufacturing plant in Malaysia.

Graphjet’s technology uses eco-sensitive methods in a circular solution using waste and its processes eliminate emissions and pollutions, it said. The company has a $30 million offtake agreement with Toyoda Gosei.

The company is advancing construction of its first manufacturing plant in the Kuantan district of Pahang state, expected to be commissioned by the second quarter of 2024.

The facility is expected to recycle up to 9,000 tonnes of palm kernels, which is agricultural waste, to produce up to 3,000 tonnes of graphite per year. Over time, the Graphjet said it expects to scale the facility to 13,000 tonnes of annual graphite production by the second half of 2026.

“There is incredible whitespace opportunity for the use of palm oil waste in Malaysia to be leveraged to produce graphite and graphene,” Graphjet CEO Aiden Lee said in a news release.

“This expedited construction and commissioning timeline for our facility will enable us to support our customer Toyoda and generate revenues in the near term,” Lee said. “We look forward to establishing ourselves as a leading supplier of graphite as our current and prospective customers seek alternatives to navigate China’s restrictions.”

ExoSphere, Fleet Space’s space-enabled mineral exploration solution, delivers 3D subsurface models in days, rather than months or years with other methods. Major miners including Rio Tinto, Barrick Gold and Core Lithium have used the technology to complete hundreds of surveys on different commodity types across five continents.

The research collaboration with Stanford’s Mineral-X aims to unlock innovation and accelerate a clean energy future leveraging space technology, the company said.

With faculty and scientists at Mineral-X, Fleet Space will engage in joint research on technological innovation to accelerate sustainable mineral discovery in support of the energy transition.

The focus will be on the optimization of drill targeting using satellite connectivity and space-enabled geophysical sensors to deliver real-time subsurface insight at scale — vital capabilities for increasing the accuracy and efficiency of exploration campaigns.

“The exploration technologies we’ve built at Fleet Space — enabled by our proprietary satellite constellation — represent a more sustainable and scalable path to increase the supply of energy transition minerals needed to achieve net-zero,” Fleet Space CEO Flavia Tata Nardini said in a news release.

Glycine leaching technology (GLT) uses glycine, a non-toxic, recyclable and biodegradable amino acid that is commonly used as a food additive, to recover gold, copper, nickel, and cobalt.

GLT was inspired by nature when researchers at Curtin University in Perth observed plants absorbing gold and other metals out of the soil through the presence of glycine, which carries those metals through the soil and into the plant.

GLT has the capacity to revolutionize the mining industry and the potential to save mining companies billions of dollars, says Draslovka. It significantly reduces processing costs, enhances a mine’s sustainability profile and can extend mine life by lowering the cut-off grade or unlocking value hidden in a mine’s tailings.

GlyCat technology can dramatically reduce cyanide usage while also lowering, or in some cases completely eliminating, detoxification measures. In select ores, the process also results in higher recoveries.

In 2023, Barrick rolled out a global testing and implementation program with the goal of using GlyCat to unlock substantive savings and generate value for its operations while also improving its environmental footprint at the Bulyanhulu gold mine in Tanzania.

The GlyCat pilot programme has led to an 80% reduction in cyanide consumption while achieving gold recoveries that are comparable to traditional cyanidation. With GlyCat as part of the process, the mine’s tailings are free of cyanide, thereby reducing detoxification requirements and costs.

“The application of GlyCat technology within our operations has significant potential to deliver improved operational efficiencies and cost savings, whilst also improving our environmental legacy,” said Barrick mineral management and evaluations executive Simon Bottoms.

“Consequently, we are very pleased to embark upon this strategic partnership with Draslovka to take advantage of this innovative technology across our global operations.”

Pavel Bruzek Jr, CEO of Draslovka, commented: “GlyCat provides significant economic and sustainability benefits at a time when the future of mining is conditional on cost savings, sustainable operations and securing social license to operate.

“I look forward to continuing to work with Barrick and am confident others in the sector will soon see that GlyCat is revolutionary, and its development will enable a major shift for the gold mining industry through massive economic and environmental benefits.”

Draslovka is a chemical technologies, products and services company creating value and improving sustainability in several industries, including mining, agriculture and manufacturing. The company is best known as the world’s largest producer of sodium cyanide, however its most important contribution to the sector is its glycine leaching technology.

In still-rare hydrogen-powered cars, the fuel is stored compressed at a pressure of around 700 atmospheres. This is neither the cheapest nor the safest method, and it has little to do with efficiency: There are only 45 kilograms of hydrogen in one cubic meter. The same volume can hold 70 kilograms of hydrogen if it is condensed beforehand.

The liquefaction process requires large amounts of energy, and the extremely low temperature, at around 20 Kelvin, must then be maintained throughout storage. An alternative could be suitable materials; for example, magnesium hydride, which can hold up to 106 kilograms of hydrogen in a cubic meter.

Magnesium hydride is among the simplest of the materials tested for hydrogen storage capacity. Its content can reach 7.6% (by weight). Magnesium hydride devices are therefore quite heavy and so mainly suitable for stationary applications. However, it is important to note that magnesium hydride is a very safe substance and can be stored without risk; for example, in a basement, and magnesium itself is a readily available and cheap metal.

“Research on the incorporation of hydrogen into magnesium has been going on for decades, yet it has not resulted in solutions that can count on wider use,” said Zbigniew Lodziana, a theoretical physicist who has co-authored an article in Advanced Science, where the latest discovery is presented.

“One source of problems is hydrogen itself. This element can effectively penetrate the crystal structure of magnesium, but only when it is present in the form of single atoms. To obtain it from typical molecular hydrogen, a catalyst efficient enough to make the process of hydrogen migration in the material fast and energetically viable is required,” Lodziana said. “So everyone has been looking for a catalyst that meets the above conditions, unfortunately without much success. Today, we finally know why these attempts were doomed to failure.”

Lodziana has developed a new model of the thermodynamic and electron processes occurring in magnesium in contact with hydrogen atoms. The model predicts that during the migration of hydrogen atoms, local, thermodynamically stable magnesium hydride clusters are formed in the material. At the boundaries between the metallic magnesium and its hydride, changes in the electronic structure of the material then occur, and these changes have a significant role in reducing the mobility of hydrogen ions.

In other words, the kinetics of magnesium hydride formation is primarily determined by phenomena at its interface with magnesium. This effect has so far not been taken into account in the search for efficient catalysts.

For this study, the migration of atomic hydrogen in a layer of pure magnesium sputtered onto palladium was studied in an ultra-high vacuum chamber. The measuring machine was capable of recording changes in the state of several outer atomic layers of the sample under study, caused by the formation of a new chemical compound and the associated transformations of the material’s electronic structure. The model proposed by the researchers allows to fully understand the experimental results.

Such results pave the way for a new search for an optimal catalyst for magnesium hydride and explain why some of the previously found catalysts showed higher efficiency than expected.

“There is much to suggest that the lack of significant progress in hydrogen storage in magnesium and its compounds was simply due to our incomplete understanding of the processes involved in hydrogen transport in these materials,” Lodziana said. “For decades, we have all been looking for better catalysts, only not where we should be looking. Now, new theoretical and experimental results make it possible to think again with optimism about further improvements in methods of introducing hydrogen into magnesium.”

While experts continue to debate the potential implications of adopting AI at both a personal and business level, the mining industry has not stayed still waiting for the conclusions.

The sector has already embarked on a quest to transform operations from the traditional heavy-equipment and men-on-site operations, to mines that integrate connectivity, automation and AI.

On a visit to MWC Barcelona, an annual trade show dedicated to the mobile communications industry, MINING.COM was able to see how the world of telecommunications and mining are increasingly intertwined. 

Invited by telecommunications giant Huawei, MINING.com — the first mining media to ever attend MWC — saw sensors, smart cameras and 5G relay boxes ready to be deployed to mines around the world.

There was buzz around the new generation of mobile internet — “5.5G,” or “5G Advanced”. The new standard is expected to make the networks themselves more “intelligent” through the application of AI and machine learning, while also boosting performance and reducing overall power consumption.

When Huawei vice president of global marketing and solutions for mining and oil and gas, Jack Chan, was asked why the company began developing solutions for the industry, the answer was as quick as clear: safety.

“In China we have almost 3 million coal miners working in 4,400 coal mines, which are underground and often register deadly accidents,” Chan said. “When taking workers out of the tunnels and into a room full of screens displaying numbers, graphs and images, not only a company is saving lives, but is also more appealing to the new generations.”

Chan added that Information and Communications Technology (ICT) infrastructure is crucial to support intelligent mining. Without fast and reliable communication networks, robust computing power, rapid data storage, and vigilant network security, essential tasks, including real-time monitoring and instant data exchange would be impossible, he explained.

“Young people don’t want to spend hours underground, hot and breathing recycled air, but they are happy to sit in a room with air conditioner and monitor activities in real time,” he said.

Data on extraction, personnel location and danger detection is centralized on a system designed to eliminate problems caused by human error and miscommunication. Instead of people, robots patrol and inspect the dark and narrow underground corridors.

“AI service architects and AI algorithm engineers will become key roles in the era of intelligence,” Chan predicts.

Remote and digital solutions are common in other coal operations, such as those in Canada and Australia, but China has lagged and now the government has set the goal of achieving basic digitalization of all mines by 2035.

Huawei is a step ahead with is AI-based Pangu Mining, a suit of applications launched in July last year, which were developed based on the pilot verification of large AI models at industrial levels. 

The name Pangu comes from ancient Chinese mythology and folklore. The legendary figure is associated with the creation of the world.

There are altogether 21 application scenarios related to nine operating activities, namely, coal mining, tunneling, primary transportation, auxiliary transportation, lifting, safety monitoring, rock burst prevention, coal preparation, and coking.

Rock bursts are a particularly challenging issue in mining. The primary means of preventing rock bursts is drilling destress holes, whose quality matters. Shandong Energy has managed to address this challenge in its Lilou and Xinjulong coal mines by deploying Huawei’s AI model. 

Thanks to its visual recognition capabilities, Pangu can intelligently analyze the quality of stress relief drilling, and assist rock burst prevention personnel in quality verification, reducing their review workload by 82%. It used to take three days to complete such checks; now the time has been shortened to 10 minutes, with a 100% acceptance rate.

Chile’s Codelco, the world’s largest copper miner, has also adopted Huawei solutions with the goal of turning around under-performing mines and projects that have crimped both production and profit.

The state-owned company is looking to streamline structures and prioritize productive areas at a time when copper output is at the lowest level in a quarter of a century.

It’s all about connectivity

Being a telecommunications company at heart, Huawei has been able to deploy connectivity solutions, from networks to an operative system able to run a wide range of equipment and smart machines. Named Harmony, the OS enables different devices to speak the same language, facilitating better connection and collaboration, and bringing a simple, continuous, secure and reliable interaction experience in all scenarios.

“In the era of intelligence, digital intelligence transformation can be accelerated only by combining AI technology with industry cognition and valuable data accumulated by enterprises,” Jason Liu, President, Learning & Certification Services of Huawei told the audience during MWC Barcelona 2024.

Liu said AI solutions should be used as a tool, not as a replacement of human intelligence.

Pangu, for instance, can detect a problem, inform the location and characteristic of such problem and provide solutions suggestions. The application is predictive, in the sense it can fill in the blanks at a very deep level.

AI is enabling mining companies to become insight‐driven enterprises that utilize data to make faster, accurate decisions, improve health and safety, boost efficiency through error elimination and reduce operations footprint.

Digital thinking is not just a tool for mining companies, but a core value that shapes their business. One of Huawei’s key messages is that to succeed in the industry, miners need to foster an organizational culture that embraces innovation and adapts to changing technologies.

The Canadian explorer and developer said it will bring forward plans to refurbish  New Cook’s Kitchen (NCK) shaft at South Crofty after an assessment of the tunnel conditions revealed the deteriorating condition of its timbers, requiring immediate action. 

“This is a key milestone for the project,” chief executive officer Richard Williams said in a statement, adding that rephasing shaft refurbishment would significantly improve the functionality of NCK shaft.

Williams also said the strategic move would enable larger equipment to access the mine at an earlier stage in its re-development as the company re-gains access to the underground mine section.

The Vancouver-based company, formerly known as Strongbow Explorations, said the process of dewatering the mine is expected to be done by the third quarter of 2025.

Cornish has said the project will have a positive impact on water quality in the Red river, as it presently receives untreated water from the mine as a legacy of past mining operations.

Water discharged from South Crofty will serve a dual purpose, the company said, as it will power a hydro-turbine, generating around 15% of the energy required by the water treatment plant.

The firm’s ultimate goal is to secure a leading place in the development of an industry for the battery metal in the UK.

Cornish said the ongoing feasibility study is on track to be completed in the first half of this year, with a Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) expected some time between April and the end of June. 

The PEA will play a crucial role in guiding the completion of the Feasibility Study and providing updated funding estimates for achieving first tin production, Williams said.

There is currently no primary mine production of tin in Europe or North America and the US has included the metal in a list of minerals considered critical to the country’s economic and national security.

South Crofty could generate up to 5,000 tonnes of tin a year, with first production expected in 2026. The company said the mine will create up to 270 direct jobs and support a further 750 in the region, one of the UK’s most underprivileged.

According to the consultancy firm, this decline makes renewable energy increasingly competitive with conventional low-cost coal power, driven by a significant reduction in capital costs for renewable power. Renewable energy costs in 2023 were 13% cheaper than conventional coal and are expected to be 32% cheaper by 2030.  

“Utility PV solar has emerged in 2023 as the cheapest power source in the region, while onshore wind is expected to become cheaper than coal after 2025,” Alex Whitworth, VP – head of Asia Pacific power research at Wood Mackenzie, said in a media statement. “Renewables firmed with battery storage are becoming competitive with gas power today but will struggle to compete with coal before 2030.” 

Whitworth pointed out that China is leading the way in lowering the cost of renewables, with utility photovoltaics, onshore wind, and offshore wind being 40-70% cheaper compared to other Asia-Pacific markets. 

“China will maintain a 50% cost advantage for renewables out to 2050, allowing the country to maintain its lead in renewables deployments,” the report states.   

The dossier also notes that solar photovoltaic power costs saw a significant decline of 23% in 2023, marking the end of two years of supply chain disruptions and inflation. In fact, utility PV emerged as the cheapest power source in 11 out of 15 countries in the Asia Pacific.

The report states that the expectation is that new-build solar project costs will drop another 20% by 2030, driven by falling module prices and increasing oversupply from China. The decline in solar technology costs in 2023-24 has put pressure on coal and gas, with LCOE for utility PV dropping by an average of 23% across Asia Pacific in 2023, driven by a 29% decline in capital costs. 

Distributed solar, on the other hand, has shown an even greater decline in costs –a 26% decrease in 2023, and the technology is now 12% cheaper on average than residential power prices creating a large potential for more rooftop solar applications.   

“This trend has made distributed solar increasingly attractive for end-users in many markets in Asia-Pacific, with costs already 30% below rising residential tariffs in China and Australia. However, some markets like India with subsidized residential power tariffs will need to wait until 2030 or later to achieve competitive distributed solar prices,” said Sooraj Narayan, senior research analyst, APAC power & renewables at Wood Mackenzie. 

Wind and fossil fuels

While onshore wind costs were higher than solar by 38% in 2023, Wood Mackenzie forecasts a 30% drop by 2030 as cheaper Chinese turbines gain market share. 

“Markets such as Australia and Southeast Asia will benefit from the low-cost import of wind power equipment from China, while Japan and South Korea with more limited Chinese turbine uptake and focus on the local supply chain will observe onshore wind costs staying above US$80/MWh by 2030,” the dossier reads.

The report also highlights the increasing competitiveness of offshore wind with fossil fuel power in Asia-Pacific, with costs falling by 11% in 2023. 

“Offshore wind costs are now on par with coal power in coastal China and are expected to become cheaper than gas power in Japan and the Taiwan region by 2027 and 2028, respectively. Falling capital costs and technology improvements are opening up new markets for offshore wind in India, Southeast Asia, and Australia over the next 5-10 years.” 

Meanwhile, coal and gas generation costs have increased by 12% since 2020 and are projected to continue rising through 2050, primarily due to carbon pricing mechanisms. 

“Developed markets in Asia-Pacific are expected to experience a significant increase in carbon prices, reaching US$20-55/tonne by 2030, while the carbon prices in Southeast Asia and India are expected to remain low,” WoodMac’s document states. “Gas power costs remain above US$100/MWh on average out to 2050, meaning they gradually lose the battle on costs with offshore wind over the next decade.”