ADAM DAUNT

Kinder Australia is helping quarries protect one of their expensive assets – conveyor belts.

The Australian sun is relentless, with some of the highest levels of ultraviolet (UV) radiation in the world.

According to the Cancer Council, the UV radiation is strong enough to cause sunburn in as little as 11 minutes on a fine summer day.

For people, avoiding the damaging rays can be as simple as “slip, slop, slap,” but the same can’t be said about conveyors.

Usually located outside conveyors need to bear the brunt of the elements. Conveyor belts – which are usually the most expensive part of the conveyor – are susceptible to UV and heat. It can cause cracking, or delamination of the top cover, significantly shortening the equipment’s life.

Sean Kinder, business development manager at Kinder Australia, told Quarry that to avoid costly downtime and repairs, quarries can cover up and protect their conveyors with the K-AllShelter.

“K-AllShelter Conveyor Covers have been designed to provide complete and reliable coverage of the conveyor,” he said.

“K-AllShelter Conveyor Belt Covers are manufactured using a wide range of optional materials and engineered as a waterproof, durable barrier.”

It’s not just the sun and heat that can disrupt a quarrying operation. Rain, hail, and sleet can alter the consistency and quality of the conveyed materials.

Kinder points to the example of a concrete plant that needs to keep its moisture levels consistent to maintain the relevant specification. Heavy rains would make this impossible, pausing critical production time.

Rain can also create downstream production issues, including screen blinding and clogging issues. Moist materials can also cause hang up in chutes, blocking material flow and creating a spillage risk. In extreme scenarios, the wind and rain could even wash the material off the belt.

Kinder said the K-AllShelter can be custom made to suit all belt widths and models.

“It depends on what you’re trying to do – are you just looking to keep the product dry, or are you looking to protect it from the wind? Is the cover being used as a guard? Are you looking to reduce dust?” he said.

“We can change the shape of the cover to fit almost any application. Our team will visit the site and inspect the conveyor, taking measurements and acquiring drawings. From there, we can create a digital model before beginning the manufacturing process.”

“When it is installed, we can also paint the cover to fit with the rest of the environment. If it’s in a more arid area, we can help it blend into the surrounding colours.”

The conveyor belt covers can be designed and manufactured using a wide range of high-performance materials including galvanised steel, pre-lacquered steel, stainless steel and aluminium and fibre reinforced polyester.

Covering the conveyor is also beneficial to operators from a safety perfective. Moving parts are covered effectively, and dust is contained safely within the covers. It features a patented double lock/hinge system, which allows access from either side of the conveyor.

Service props and struts also come in varying designs, shapes, and sizes. These handy tools allow operators to gain access inside the cover to conduct routine maintenance.

Service props are fully adjustable systems that hold up the conveyor belt cover safely and securely so that any maintenance inside the covers can be easily performed.

Kinder has had positive feedback.

“The sites that have generally ordered a sample to be installed on one conveyor have come back to have them installed on others,” he said.

“The sites are comfortable using them and they can see the value the protection brings.”

The K-AllShellter also feature a dust-tight seal that prevents dust from escaping the conveyor. This also prevents dust from entering the conveyor system and causing damage to the components.

Kinder said eliminating spillage and dust is vital for the company, and one of the reasons it is focusing on the K-AllShelter.

“We are always looking for ways to cut down on the amount of labour our customers need to do. Eliminating spillage means there is less time spent cleaning around the conveyors, and more time focused on tasks that add value.”

For more information visit kinder.com.au

ALEXANDRA EASTWOOD

Derrick Corporation’s gold screening equipment can minimise maintenance and increase production.

Derrick Corporation’s innovative gold screening equipment allows customers to get more out of their operations.

Gold has been an integral part of the Australian mining environment for centuries. But as ore deposits get deeper and harder to access, processing equipment must keep up to ensure the precious metal can be mined for years to come.

Derrick Corporation has committed itself to developing new and innovative screening equipment to advance gold processing, while also contributing to a favourable investment return for its customers.

“A lot of our innovations come from providing solutions to our current customers,” Derrick general manager mining Garth Hay told Australian Mining.

“For example, the development of the G-Vault (urethane interstage screen) came from a customer complaint about their interstage screen being one of the bottlenecks of their system.”

Over a number of years, Derrick has developed screening solutions to minimise the maintenance a customer has to undertake and to reduce environmental impact.

These new designs and capabilities permit screens to replace more traditional flowsheet elements.

“A Derrick Stack Sizer can replace the hydrocyclones in a grinding circuit, resulting in greater recovery at reduced power consumption per tonne,” Hay said.

“Derrick machines provide superior performance in a smaller footprint, which can offer a huge advancement for a gold plant. By replacing old hydrocyclone technology with modern high-frequency vibrating screens, overall plant capacity can increase by 20 to 50 per cent.”

The G-Vault complete interstage unit is the latest addition to the Derrick gold processing portfolio. The G-Vault employs a modular approach, combining a screen surface with a robust and easy-to-connect support structure.

“The G-Vault features tapered openings and can withstand higher temperatures, contributing to its non-blinding characteristics,” Hay said.

“These non-blinding and abrasion-resistant properties result in a screen with higher throughput, increased life and less maintenance, all of which lead to a more efficient recovery of gold.”

The G-Vault, which has been installed in multiple locations around the world, has been met with wide acclaim.

“Customers are happy to report benefits from a maintenance and production standpoint,” Hay said. “From a maintenance side, we are decreasing man hours spent on maintaining a piece of equipment which in turn helps to reduce risk on-site. From a production standpoint, the G-Vault can increase flow, help mitigate carbon loss and run a consistent CIP (carbon in pulp) or CIL (carbon in leach) system.”

One of Derrick’s primary objectives is to minimise operational costs by developing highly durable machines.

For example, the Derrick integrated vibratory motors feature maintenance-free components that eliminate the need for routine maintenance and downtime. Used in conjunction with Derrick’s long-lasting Polyweb urethane panels, these motors enable clients to achieve optimal availability of their equipment.

The extensive research that goes into the development of these machines helps to ensure a high gold recovery rate and seamless user experience.

This research has evolved into the development of a range of screening solutions to address various gold-processing needs, including hydrocyclone overflow trash duty, tailings carbon safety, in-tank interstage carbon retention, de-gritting, loaded carbon, carbon sizing, carbon dewatering, gravity protection separation, and carbon column safety.

“Our focus has always been to reduce operation expenses by creating more robust machines,” Hay said.

“We have found our customers achieve higher availability with our machines. For example, once the G-Vault is installed, it can be operated for approximately six months before it is required to be changed.

“Other similar solutions may need weekly maintenance, which comes at extra man hours and a loss of tonnes. The G-Vault provides operational, production and safety benefits that increase profitability.”

With a new Australian office now open in Queensland, Derrick is ideally placed to help its customers make the most of its gold processing solutions, no matter the location.

This feature appeared in the August 2023 issue of Australian Mining.

TIMOTHY BOND

It has long been a trusted mining partner of countries across the world, but there is urgency for Australia to expand its downstream options as the world decarbonises.

Any new industry can present a race to the top, with early adopters best placed to capitalise on new market share and gain a competitive advantage.

This is the case in the context of decarbonisation, where more and more countries are recognising the commercial opportunities that come with establishing the net-zero power sources of a cleaner future.

The situation represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity, and Australia is beginning to understand the role it can play in supporting the green transformation.

Having established itself as a mining superpower, Australia is already a key supplier of the materials driving the world’s renewable energy technologies. But the country can be more than the world’s green-energy quarry, with opportunities to look further downstream and establish vertically integrated renewable industries onshore.

One avenue could be to develop a local battery supply chain, something the Future Battery Industries Cooperative Research Centre (FBICRC) sees as a particularly urgent commercial pathway.

“The clean-energy transition is moving faster,” FBICRC chief executive officer Shannon O’Rourke told Australian Mining. “Government spending on clean energy has increased 30 per cent in the past two years.

“Greater subsidies are driving electric vehicle (EV) demand and increasing commodity prices and volumes. In the past 18 months, the opportunity for Australia has doubled.”

FBICRC released a report in March suggesting Australia’s battery opportunity could contribute $16.9 billion to the Australian economy by 2030.

The report, Charging Ahead – Australia’s Battery Powered Future, highlights Australia’s mining and geological upside, particularly in the production and endowment of critical minerals, and how this can support capabilities further downstream.

This not only encompasses battery manufacturing but other segments in the value chain, such as refining and active materials.

“Australia is cost-competitive across the entire value chain,” O’Rourke said. “We are eight per cent cheaper than Indonesia to produce advanced materials and five per cent cheaper than the United States to produce cells.”

Australia also has a significant advantage in refining, with the potential to be the world’s cheapest producer of lithium hydroxide monohydrate (LHM) through upstream integration in the supply chain. This is the result of Australia’s abundant lithium reserves and mining capacity, which creates natural synergies with downstream applications.

Some Australian companies are already harnessing onshore lithium hydroxide opportunities, with Mineral Resources (MinRes) and IGO producing the refined product from their downstream processing facilities in Kemerton and Kwinana, respectively.

The Kemerton plant sources spodumene concentrate – a raw lithium material – from the Greenbushes lithium mine in WA, which is part owned by MinRes’ Kemerton partner, Albemarle Corporation.

IGO’s Kwinana plant, which it owns in partnership with Tianqi Lithium Corporation, also sources spodumene from Greenbushes.

The lithium hydroxide produced from Kemerton and Kwinana is then shipped offshore for further processing before it is upgraded to active materials such as lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) or nickel-cobalt-manganese (NCM) – two key cathode inputs for renewable batteries.

But demand for Australia’s upstream products is not solely coming from overseas, with a growing local renewable energy sector seeking more materials than ever.

“Australia’s local demand is skyrocketing,” O’Rourke said. “Bloomberg reports that Australia has the largest pipeline of energy storage projects behind China, and a recent Sunwiz report shows that Australia’s behind-the-meter battery storage market is up 55 per cent year on year.”

The Australian Government is funding eight large-scale batteries to be built across the country, storing renewable energy and reducing the reliance on fossil-fuel power generation. Project locations extend from Victoria’s Surf Coast all the way up to Queensland’s tropical north.

Building independent capabilities is important, but for Australia to effectively harness its battery opportunity, it needs to tackle the matter holistically.

“Building an ecosystem is like trying to solve the chicken-and-egg problem,” O’Rourke said. “A healthy ecosystem needs multiple suppliers, customers and producers, supported by service companies, a flexible workforce, the research sector and government.

“Building that incrementally could take decades, and no other country is taking that approach. Industrial growth is non-linear and needs to be supported by trade and accelerated by domestic support.

“Australia is in a good position. It has multiple projects either announced or operating across all elements of the value chain including refining, materials, (and) cell and system manufacturing.

“We have a complete value chain today, including cell manufacturers. The challenge is building out more capacity and scaling up.”

FBICRC believes Australia can be competitive all the way from refining to manufacturing, but the country must find its sweet spot.

“We do not need to match China’s scale; rather we need to achieve minimum economic scale,” O’Rourke said. “Our minerals strength, our secure supply and our ESG (environmental, social and governance) credentials help sharpen our competitive edge.

“Australia has two cell manufacturing projects which meet this minimum scale: Recharge Industries’ 30-gigawatt-hour-per-annum project in Avalon (Victoria) and Energy Renaissance 5.3-gigawatt-hour-per-annum project in Tomago (New South Wales).

“The NRF (National Reconstruction Fund) and other support mechanisms can help Australia’s lighthouse projects get to scale and develop their supporting industries to build a competitive ecosystem.”

The Australian Government introduced the NRF in October 2022, contributing $15 billion to transform several future-facing industries, including renewable energy and downstream opportunities within the resources sector.

Federal support has also been flowing via the Critical Minerals Development Program, which recently provided close to $50 million in grants for emerging upstream and downstream projects.

This included $6.5 million of funding for Australian Strategic Materials’ Dubbo rare earths project in NSW, $4.7 million for International Graphite’s ‘mine-to-market’ graphite strategy in WA, and $4.6 million for IGO’s integrated precursor cathode active material (pCAM) facility in WA.

IGO is developing its downstream project in partnership with Andrew Forrest-backed Wyloo Metals, demonstrating the power of collaboration in Australia’s downstream ventures.

Collaboration is also a key part of FBICRC’s work and underpins its own pilot plant, is exploring the local production of NCM cathode materials.

“There is a strong collaborative spirit supporting our cathode precursor production pilot plant facility, where we are currently manufacturing high performance materials to world standard,” O’Rourke said.

“Four universities and 18 other businesses have come together to build and demonstrate an Australian manufacturing capability.”

Key mining industry players such as BHP, Allkem, IGO, Cobalt Blue, Lycopodium and BASF have come together with FBICRC to further Australia’s understanding of the active materials industry.

Australia’s battery opportunity is there for all to see, and there are enough developments to suggest that an integrated supply chain could be established.

But for it to happen, Australia must be firing on all cylinders, with stakeholders right across the battery supply chain working together to make this dream a reality.

Martin Engineering, a global leader in high-performance conveyor components, has introduced a new standard in wear liner technology.

The Manufactured Canoe Liner is made from durable urethane molded around a rugged steel plate to absorb impact and abrasion from the punishing bulk handling environment.

With the protective plate integrated directly into the urethane liner, the design delivers superior shielding of the skirt sealing system and chute wall from heavy, fast-moving cargo. The result is extended equipment life, longer periods of dust and spillage control, improved safety and less maintenance, reducing the overall cost of operation.

“This is a shift in the engineering and role of wear liners,” Martin Engineering manager of conveyor products Dave Mueller said.

“Like most conveyor components, the design has evolved into a component that is more effective, safer to maintain and more reliable.”

Previously, most wear liners were sheets of steel welded onto the internal chute wall of the conveyor loading zone. These protected the wall from the punishing effects of splashing, shifting and abrasive material. But since they are wear parts, periodic replacement of these early designs involved enclosed chute entry and hot work using a blow torch, which required certification and supervision, while running the risk of igniting explosive dust.

The steel plates generally did not effectively protect the rubber skirt seal, leading to more frequent skirt replacements. Moreover, the wear liner’s position often left a gap between the liner and the skirting, which captured small lumps of material that could damage the belt. These design issues resulted in excessive downtime, premature equipment replacement and extra labor to monitor and maintain.

The Martin Manufactured Canoe Liner is an engineered urethane strip molded directly around a protective steel plate.  The unique approach avoids the bonding issues common to previous designs, preventing urethane separation from the plate that could damage the belt and enclosure.

Each section has a series of two inch (51 mm) long bracket holes for vertical adjustment. The bottom belt side of the liner is cut to an optional 20º, 35º, or 45º angle to maximise belt sealing and protect the softer material of the skirt seal from premature wear.

Depending on the weight and abrasiveness of the conveyed material, customers can choose a urethane thickness of 1.3-2 inches (33-51 mm).

Delivered in storable cartridges 48 inches (1219 mm) in length, the units can be cut on site to match the needs of the chute. The cartridges can also be installed vertically on top of one another to accommodate taller chute walls or raised enclosures. Like the lower sections, the upper units can be adjusted as well.

As material gradually erodes the Manufactured Canoe Liner, the bottom trough angle continues to protect the skirting. If there are significant gaps between the belt and liner, each individual cartridge can be adjusted by a single technician using a socket wrench.

Replacement is easy by simply removing the worn units, mounting each new cartridge, and cutting the end piece to fit. This reduces what used to be a one or two day job to one to two hours.

“Martin is constantly seeking to innovate every aspect of the bulk handling process with the goal of making it safer, more effective and easier to maintain,” Mueller said.

“The introduction of the Manufactured Canoe Liner achieves our objectives by improving efficiency and lowering the cost of operation.”