ASX-listed SciDev Ltd says it has been awarded a three-year contract with Iluka Resources for delivery of MaxiFlox® chemistry to the Jacinth–Ambrosia zircon mine, in South Australia.
The contract, expected to be worth some A$8-12 million ($5-8 million) over the three-year term, follows the delivery of a chemical products trial for the miner in the December quarter of 2018. This itself occurred following the announcement of a commercial OptiFlox® System test SciDev carried out.
MaxiFlox is specifically designed for use in solid liquid separation processes, SciDev says. Products in the MaxiFlox range are supplied in both liquid and powder form across an extensive range of molecular weights and charge densities to solve industrial challenges. Products include:
- MaxiFlox organic liquid coagulants (based on synthetic organic monomers and naturally occurring polysaccharides);
- MaxiFlox inorganic liquid coagulant blends;
- MaxiFlox cationic and anionic flocculant emulsions;
- MaxiFlox cationic and anionic flocculant powders;
- MaxiFlox mud solidification polymers, and;
- MaxiFlox antifoam products.
The technology can be used across a range of industries including mining and minerals processing, water and wastewater, oil and gas, food and beverage and paper manufacturing.
Iluka’s Jacinth-Ambrosia operation is the world’s largest zircon mine, according to the miner. Comprising two contiguous deposits, Jacinth and Ambrosia, the mine is around 800 km from Adelaide and 270 km from the Port of Thevenard.
The operation encompasses mining and wet concentration activities with heavy mineral concentrate transported to Iluka’s Narngulu mineral separation plant in Western Australia for final processing. Jacinth-Ambrosia can produce up to some 1,000 t/h of heavy mineral concentrate, which can produce up to ~300,000 t/y of zircon.