MINTEK: Mould-Breaking Mintek Celebrates 90 Years
The Mintek@90 Conference in November will celebrate the major achievements of South Africa’s world-renowned mineral research and innovation business. Since 1943, Mintek has been pioneering and innovating to advance the way the mining and minerals industry works. Prof. Indresan Govender, Group Executive: Mineral Processing and Characterisation, talks to Enterprise Africa about historic success, current projects, and future ambitions.
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South Africa’s Mintek is a world leader in the research and development of the minerals industry. When it comes to extracting from the ground, processing, adding value, and understanding detailed metallurgical innovation, there are not many around the world who can match Mintek’s research and testing capability.
Over the years, the company has revolutionised the way gold and platinum is processed, developing a uniform system for application across various mining sites, putting South Africa on the map.
Key in the company’s success is its extensive experience and knowledge, developed over years at the industry’s forefront. A melting pot of science, technology, academic, mining, research, and skills from a range of spheres, Mintek is preparing to celebrate nine decades of success.
In November, the company will host a conference – Mintek@90 – in collaboration with the Southern African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (SAIMM) and the Department of Minerals and Energy, heralding the impact of Mintek while serving as an opportunity to look forward.
“We have big plans,” Group Executive: Mineral Processing and Characterisation, Prof. Indresan Govender tells Enterprise Africa.
“It is to bring together industry partners and academic partners, both local and international, to help us celebrate 90 years. A lot of the event will be around telling the story of Mintek and the huge success we have had over the years. It is also an opportunity to bring industry partners together so they can talk to each other and identify the common issues and strategic directions they are looking to take.”
EST. 1934
Backed by the South African government, Mintek’s value to the country has never been in doubt. Helping local and international partners to achieve their goals in turn helps the country to drive GDP. Currently, mining and minerals contributes around 8% of the country’s GDP, estimated at more than R200 billion. The stats are also important across Africa where mining is responsible for around 4.5% of continental GDP.
Through the last 90 years, Mintek has always been an innovator and has delivered knowledge that is sparsely found anywhere else.
“We do a lot of research with local and international mining houses that operate across the full minerals value chain,” explains Govender.
“Whenever something arrives at the surface, all of the processing of that, right up to the manufacturing of products from those minerals, Mintek is involved in the research,” he clarifies.
“If the elements are found on the periodic table, Mintek knows how to process those into a concentrate that can be used for manufacturing products. It could be iron, platinum, gold, copper or anything else.”
After starting up in 1934, the company boomed in the 1970s when its work in platinum group metals (PGMs) gained it worldwide notoriety. “Mintek found a solution that revolutionised the processing of platinum and it moved SA to the number one spot in terms of platinum production. Part of what we are doing at Mintek@90 is to quantify what that has meant for SA. We are talking about an excess of hundreds of billions of dollars,” Govender adds.
Since 1994, Mintek has operated as a Section 3B company, partially funded by the state but also able to generate its own revenue across a range of activities. This structure has been successful for the business and the country, but could potentially be changed in the future as Mintek aspirations are truly continental.
“It’s safe to say that, of all the state-owned entities in SA, Mintek is an exception. We are profitable,” smiles Govender. “We have a strong reputation in industry, and as a research organisation across the value chain that we cover, we are a leader in the world. There is not another organisation on the planet that can handle the full range of research activity, right up the higher technology readiness levels (TRL).”
Because of this advanced and extensive skillset, the company has been able to navigate several challenging macroeconomic periods in South Africa, always appealing to clients for knowledge and ability that improves efficiency. Govender highlights the Mintek relationship with industry, aware that results are essential for progress.
“It is a strong relationship and that is based only on a business case. We have to convince that we add value and business pays us to utilise that. Our aim going forward is to try and reduce our dependence on State support as we know that in many instances we can operate as a purely private entity.”
NOVEL APPROACHES
Currently, Mintek is engaged in projects for local and international mining houses researching the potential for extending the life of mines. Finding the more difficult deposits, extracting them effectively, and processing the materials when standard mining operations are no longer suitable is an exciting challenge for Mintek. Underground mining has a reputation as a dangerous activity and traditional open pit surface mining is also beset with environmental and sustainability concerns. New technologies and ideas are required for mining to continue successfully, and Mintek’s research underpins the concepts being developed right now.
“A lot of the easy-to-find, highly concentrated iron ore has been depleted,” confirms Govender, adding that the company is now busy with extension projects across many minerals.
“Generally, you start mining with a rich ore body but after many decades you need to tap into resources that are sparsely populated and you need new and novel approaches to extract value.
“There are deposits that remain, but they are deep within the earth, in complex forms. Mintek is developing process solutions for that with the aim of extending the life of mine by two or three decades. Without those solutions, mining companies would have to stop iron ore mining in a profitable way within the next decade. Mintek has partnered with key role players to do everything to bring these solutions to fruition.”
At the same time, Mintek has set up pilot facilities for strategic industry partners in the titanium industry, investigating advances in furnace technology. The company is busy with critical battery minerals, testing flow sheets through piloting. “It’s all about how many kgs per ton of material processed can you produce. If those solutions are deemed viable then the industry partner would implement at scale and then pay us a royalty,” says Govender, adding that optimisation of costing models helps keep the business sustainable in the longer-term.
Extractive metallurgy is also being researched heavily as Mintek clients look for ways to improve efficiency through the deployment of fresh ideas. One concept involves using leaching solutions at scale – both chemical and biological – to improve gold extraction, an industry in which SA remains a world-leader.
“We also work in testing, design and optimisation of units for processing operations. For example, we are working on tumbling mills for breaking rocks. We help industry partners to design and optimise that for particular types of ore. We are currently busy with two projects like this, one for a local partner and one for an international partner,” says Govender.
INTELLIGENT BEHAVIOUR
In recent years, human-free mining operations have moved closer. The safety concerns in deeper, older, more complicated mine infrastructure have fuelled a drive for mining led by machines. Again, Mintek is leading the research in terms of deployable technology and the processes that will allow this new generation of mining to begin.
For Govender, a Professor with more than 20 years of experience in fundamental research from the University of Cape Town and the University of KwaZulu-Natal, this type of project is very appealing.
“We thrive in turning good ideas, models and insights that are at least possible at the pilot stage into going concerns. In order to achieve that, you have to have piloting facilities and in this regard we are the strongest. We have accrued piloting facilities over the last decades that place us in a unique position where if something emerges from a university, the only place to test it and optimise is Mintek,” he states.
Whether mining coal, gold, or diamonds, taking people out of harms way and reducing the operating cost of a site will have commercial benefits for the mining house. Some argue that autonomous mining could be more sustainable in the long-term because of drastically improved efficiency.
“We are right at the front of things and we are fully engaged with the notion of autonomous mining, using AI driven robots. We are partnering with companies from Silicon Valley that are keen on autonomous mining,” Govender reveals. “The economic assessment against the technology suggests that within the next 10-15 years mining will go completely autonomous and we will not need people in mines. That is a politically charges debate in the African context. This is where getting in on the ground very early is important, equipping politicians to be a part of that journey so that they can equip people to not be left behind, retaining and upskilling local communities and the general workforce to be a valuable contributor to that process. That process is underway, you can join the journey or watch it from afar.”
Mintek is working with a team of US-based partners as the main research partner in Africa to drive the rollout and technology development of the autonomous mining robots, starting in SA and then moving across the continent.
“These are AI driven robots, but the key ingredient is data,” warns Govender. “If you have no data you can drop the word ‘intelligence’ from AI. If you have lots of data then you can start to approximate something that behaves intelligently. Mintek is going to facilitate the gathering and input of data into these robots, and we must embed mineral processing intelligence into the AI algorithms as well.
“Our partners are good at building robots but not good at mineral processing. If they want the robots to perform strongly in the mining space, they cannot escape partnering with people who understand mineral process and has access to lot of data.”
SECONDARY VALUE
South Africa was and is built on mining and the land underneath many of the modern towns and cities is compared to Swiss cheese by Govender, with abandoned or closed mine shafts rooting down into the earth. For Mintek, these old shafts represent another opportunity for the deployment of modern technology to extract value from what might have previously been thought of as an obsolete operational site. Mintek research confirms that by using robotic mining and processing, reducing the risk of harm to humans completely, old mine shafts can offer up value.
“We are trying to facilitate mining in those closed or abandoned shafts, where secondary processing could extract value in a shaft that had been previously considered to have no value left because technology was not there at the time,” he explains, adding that no other organisation as the experience and knowledge scope to perform such research. “That seems to hold a huge untapped market. The shafts are not easily accessed by people, in fact legally you should not have humans going into the shafts. In the SA context, we have illegal mining taking place extensively. We plan to deploy autonomous robots to go into the shafts and do the work.”
Obviously, the fear in this regard comes around the potential of job losses as miners are replaced with technology. But, again, Mintek is researching the possibility of creating new opportunities surrounding any autonomous down-shaft endeavour.
“Depending on how successful that is, we can set up small scale focused mineral processing plants in those catchment areas that are populated traditionally by impoverished communities. The idea is to empower them to own the whole processing operation and that is a noble aspiration. It seems currently that it is a way to create jobs and economic prosperity while employing robots in a place that would otherwise have had nothing.”
Importantly, these advances are not way off in the distant future, beyond the horizon. The ideas and innovations have been developed, the technology exists, and the rollout could come in the next few years. “The due diligence has been done,” says Govender. “Overall, the cost benefit, moral obligation, and political value all comes together to make a good business case.”
This is not the only sustainability strategy that the company is researching. Tailings dumps – seemingly waste material left over or abandoned when a mine is closed – are littered across SA, and it has become increasingly obvious in recent years that tailings can still hold significant minerals reserves. In the past, lacking processing capability has resulted in tailings dumps being completely discarded and often become environmental hazards. Mintek believes there are opportunities to treat tailings and exploit the value that remains.
“We are looking at using secondary mineral processing to extract from waste. It has the dual benefit of rehabilitating that areas by not leaving it with a legacy dump that could potentially be a disaster waiting to happen,” details Govender. “Extracting value and leaving it in more structurally stable position that you found it is something that Mintek is trying to do as much we can. We are partnering with big companies to ensure that sustainable solutions are derived from tailings dams. Our business is truly diverse.”
600 employees, with a strong percentage of Masters and PhD students from around the world, make for an organisational ethos of learning and excellence. While much has changed since the establishment of the Minerals Research Laboratory in 1934, the culture of innovation remains.
“We have just embarked on a new 2030 strategy. A lot of that is about repositioning Mintek as a leading research organisation by having the top skills in the problems and projects that we tackle. That has been our biggest achievement of the last five years – we have really intelligent people employed. The diversity there is quite extensive and exceptional,” says Govender.
Today, Mintek operates in 45 countries, across more than 150 mining sites, with instruments and control systems allowing remote connection from South Africa.
At Mintek@90, the success of the past will be promoted, but Govender and team will certainly have eyes on the future, hoping to open conversations with industry and clients about how Mintek’s offering can be tailored for the changing minerals landscape of the next century.