Tag Archives: European Union

Minespider wins EIT Raw Materials funding for supply chain transparency app

Communications in mining, Energy minerals, IoT, Mining policy, Mining services, Mining software, Precious metals, , , , , , , , , ,

Minespider, a blockchain protocol for responsible mineral tracking, has been awarded a grant of over €180,000 ($213,732) from the EIT Raw Materials Booster Programme.

The program aims to support start-ups and SMEs in creating innovative products and services that will positively impact the raw materials sector, according to Minespider.

The grant will help Minespider develop OreSource, a due diligence product that helps mines and smelters capture key information that importers in the European Union need to comply with EU Conflict Mineral Regulation. The regulation, which comes into force in January 2021, requires EU importers of 3TG (tin, tungsten, tantalum and gold) to perform due diligence to determine whether their material comes from a conflict affected or high-risk area.

Minespider Founder and CEO, Nathan Williams, said: “European importers need to have better access to data to operate in this new regulatory environment. They require certain data to be included with the materials they purchase.”

The OreSource product extends the capabilities of Minespider’s open, public blockchain protocol, which allows companies to track their raw material shipments, demonstrating where the materials come from and the conditions under which they were produced, the company says. This blockchain creates digital certificates that separate data into three different layers, depending on whether the data should be publicly visible, transparent between members of the same supply chain, or private between a company and their customer.

“This allows their clients, including Volkswagen and Google, to share sensitive transparency information with their customers and other supply chain participants securely,” Minespider says.

The OreSource app allows mines and smelters to provide information to distinguish their products from the rest of the market. Mines and smelters who use the app upload key data such as bills of lading, invoices, company policies, and third-party certifications, which are assembled into a digital certificate and linked along the supply chain.

By affixing a QR code to a mineral shipment, or on an invoice, the recipients of the materials have all the data they need to ensure their compliance with the EU regulation, secured on Minespider’s public blockchain protocol, the company claims.

Williams continued: “Responsible producers are often at a disadvantage in the global market. OreSource is a solid first step toward making responsibly sourced material the norm instead of the exception.”

Companies importing material into Europe benefit from this information, as they have all they need to conduct due diligence. “This means they can view transport routes, analyse production site responsibility, and demonstrate a chain of custody for their raw materials,” Minespider says.

OreSource will also offer analytical tools that allow material importers to identify potential conflict areas and other red flags, the company says, enabling them to ask further questions when needed and ensure all of their imports have been sourced responsibly.

Williams concluded: “The EU and other government agencies are spearheading a new global era of sustainable sourcing. OreSource will support these efforts by ensuring that key data from mineral producers is captured in a transparent manner, and communicated along the supply chain. We are moving away from a world of anonymous commodities, to one of trusted products.”

Retenua’s RefleX machine vision tech set to go underground in EU-backed project

Communications in mining, IoT, Mining equipment, Mining safety, Mining services, Mining software, , , , , , , , , ,

An EU-backed project looking to tap into the full potential of the ‘digital mine’ goes live this month, with Retenua’s AI-driven RefleX™ machine vision technology set to be further optimised, adapted and tested as part of the scope.

The illuMINEation project under the European Union-backed Horizon 2020 has a budget of €8.9 million ($10.5 million) and is looking to embed digital thinking into the heart of the mining sector by improving digital skills of mining personnel and enhancing the cooperation along the entire digital mining value chain, according to Retenua.

“Europe urgently needs to reduce its import dependency in respect to a multitude of raw materials,” it said. “In order to do so, Europe’s mining industry must completely redesign the process of traditional mining via the adoption of pioneering innovations and extensive use of data analytics.”

The illuMINEation project will highlight significant aspects of digitalisation in underground mining activities with the core objective of improving the efficiency as well as health and safety of European mining operations and its personnel, Retenua said, with RefleX set to be one technology to undergo testing.

In the scope of IlluMINEation research project, RefleX will be employed in demanding underground mining environments. The core technology of Retenua’s product line emitrace®, RefleX includes both embedded infrared stereo vision hardware and smart algorithms for detecting and tracking workers and equipment from mobile heavy machinery.

The ability to reliably detect worksite personnel and selected infrastructure in the vicinity of vehicles not only in good daylight conditions but also in poorly illuminated environments makes Retenua’s solution highly suitable for use both above and below ground, the company says.

The technology evaluation and customisation will be primarily carried out in collaboration with project partner Epiroc Rock Drills AB and represent an important step towards improved safety standards in mining operations, Retenua said.

The multidisciplinary project consortium within illuMINEation consists of 19 partners from six European countries, constituting a well-balanced assembly of world leading industrial and academic players from a multitude of technical fields and applications, it added.

This includes Montanuniversitaet Leoben, Joanneum Research Forschungsgesellschaft MBH, Epiroc Rock Drills AB, ams AG, KGHM Cuprum sp zoo, DMT GmbH & CO KG, GEOTEKO Serwis Sp zoo, Lulea Tekniska University, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, KGHM Polska Miedz SA, Minera de Orgiva SL, RHI Magnesita GmbH, DSI Underground Austria GmbH, Retenua AB, IMA Engineering Ltd Oy, Fundacion Tecnalia Research & Innovation, Worldsensing SL, Instytut Chemii Bioorganiczney Polskiej Akademii Nauk and Boliden Mineral AB.

CyanoGuard receives EU, investor backing for next gen cyanide monitoring solution

Environmental, IoT, Mineral processing, Mining services, Mining software, Precious metals, , , , , , , ,

Switzerland-based chemtech startup CyanoGuard has completed a fundraising and been awarded a non-dilutive SME Instrument grant by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 program that, it says, will speed up market penetration and develop further applications for its next generation cyanide monitoring solutions.

Established in 2016, CyanoGuard has since developed and commercialised its solutions for gold mining operations, food safety testing and healthcare.

Co-Founders Benedikt Kirchgässler (CEO) and Mathias Cherbuin (CTO) transformed a chemical technology for rapid toxin detection from the labs of the University of Zurich into a “comprehensive digital solution package” that has found its first commercial application in the gold mining industry.

The company has now raised more than CHF3 million ($3.12 million) to help further develop the technology, which CyanoGuard says can minimise cyanide consumption by 12% while maximising extraction efficiency through real-time, instaneous measurement results.

Kirchgässler said: “These funds enable us to scale our ground-breaking monitoring solutions and roll them out to gold mines around the world.

“I am excited about the positive impact that our digital, artificial intelligence-based technology has on the global gold mining industry as well as the local communities and the environment.

“I believe that we will benefit from both the experience of leading venture funds…as well as the support of the European Union to speed up market penetration and develop further applications for our technology.”

With the newly raised capital from this seed round, CyanoGuard plans to accelerate its go-to-market strategy in the global mining industry.

Alex Stöckl, Founding Partner at Wingman Ventures, who has joined CyanoGuard’s Board of Directors following the funding round, added: “With its current offering, CyanoGuard has a unique value proposition for its mining clients that is beyond improved cyanide testing. This encompasses an efficiency-enhancing digitisation of process control and a more sustainable usage of cyanide in mining operations.

“We are convinced that Benedikt, Mathias and their team will drive CyanoGuard to become a globally leading provider of digital mining solutions.”

The freshly obtained funds are also intended to further expedite the development of CyanoGuard’s product offering for food safety and healthcare applications, the company said.

EU-funded robotics project to confront underground mining challenges

IoT, Mining equipment, Mining services, Mining software, Sustainable mining, , , , , , , , ,

The European Union (EU) has agreed to fund a project through its Horizon 2020 program looking into the development of a “bio-inspired, modular and reconfigurable robot-miner” for small and difficult to access underground mineral deposits.

The 48-month ROBOMINERS project held its kick-off meeting in Madrid, Spain, on June 13-14, 2019.

The project has been set up with the long-term strategic objective to facilitate EU access to raw materials – including those considered strategic or critical for the global energy transition – from domestic resources. This is all in an effort to decrease the EU’s import dependency.

ROBOMINERS’ approach combines the creation of a new mining ecosystem with novel ideas from other sectors, in particular the inclusion of disruptive concepts from robotics, the European Commission said.

“The use of the robot miner will especially be relevant for mineral deposits that are small or difficult to access,” it said. “This covers both abandoned, nowadays flooded mines, that are not accessible anymore for conventional mining techniques, or places that have formerly been explored but whose exploitation was considered as uneconomic due to the small size of the deposits or the difficulty to access them.”

Within the project duration, the consortium aims to:

  • Construct a fully functional modular robot miner prototype following a bio-inspired design, capable of operating, navigating and performing selective mining in a flooded underground environment;
  • Design a mining ecosystem of expected future upstream/downstream raw materials processes via simulations, modelling and virtual prototyping;
  • Validate all key functions of the robot-miner to a Technology Readiness Level 4, and;
  • Use the prototypes to study and advance future research challenges concerning scalability, resilience, re-configurability, self-repair, collective behaviour, operation in harsh environments, selective mining, production methods as well as for the necessary converging technologies on an overall mining ecosystem level.

Led by the Centre for Automation and Robotics of the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid and the Spanish National Research Council, ROBOMINERS will be implemented by a consortium of 14 partners from 11 EU countries, that covers a wide range specialities, consisting of geo-scientific SMEs, academics covering both mining and robotics, non-governmental organisations, and governmental bodies.

The European Federation of Geologists, which has a network of more than 45,000 geoscientists across Europe, will lead the dissemination and communication efforts within ROBOMINERS.

EU geothermal energy production and metals extraction project on final stretch

Mineral exploration, Mineral project development, Mining equipment, Mining events, Mining techniques, Power supply for mines, Sustainable mining, , , , ,

An ambitious research project funded by the European Union to develop a novel technology combining geothermal energy production with metals extraction from the geothermal fluid in a single interlinked process is entering its final stages.

The Combined Heat Power and Metals (CHPM2030) technology project is part of the EU’s Horizon 2020 programme for Research and Innovation, a platform set up to lower the costs and environmental impact of energy production, while decreasing the dependence on imported strategic raw materials.

The project co-ordinators said: “In order to improve the economics of deep geothermal energy development, the project investigates possible technologies for manipulating metal-bearing geological formations with geothermal potential at a depth of 3-4 km, and potentially even deeper.

“The project’s aim is that the co-production of energy and metals will become possible and may be optimised according to market demands in the future. The project will also provide a proof of the technological concept on a laboratory scale.”

Experts from all over Europe are joining efforts to make this novel technology become a reality, with work divided into eight interlinked parts, known as Work Packages. The 42-month project is now entering its final stage, with many important tasks already completed and the project team working on the last elements to conclude the project by the end of June.

This includes:

  • System integration: The contemporary power plant design will be adapted to the expected temperature, between 120-190°C, and extreme salinity conditions that will occur under the CHPM scheme;
  • Integrated sustainability assessments: To ensure the CHPM technology is safe for the environment and society, the project is setting up a framework to assess environmental and socio-economic impacts, and is carrying out baseline economics for energy and mineral raw materials, and;
  • Roadmapping and preparation of pilots: To pave the way for the long-term future of the CHPM technology, the project team is analysing study areas in the UK, Romania, Sweden and Portugal, where the technology could be applied, and is using different foresight tools for the horizon 2030 – 2050.

Preliminary outcomes and results will be presented to the public at the CHPM2030 final conference to be held on May 23, 2019 in Delft, the Netherlands, in the framework of the EuroWorkshop Geology and the Energy Transition.