Tag Archives: frothers

Orica’s Chemicals business eyes new complementary opportunities

Orica’s Investor Day, taking place last week, highlighted potential growth areas in one of the company’s less-publicised ‘verticals’, its Chemicals business.

Mining, Quarry & Construction and Digital solutions often steal the headlines in quarterly updates, but Adam Hall, Group Executive & President of Asia & Chemicals, showed there is plenty going on within the company’s fourth vertical.

This business, which covers the fields of ore processing, chemical stabilisation and recovery & treatment, strengthens Orica’s presence across the mining value chain, having a strong alignment with its global footprint and understanding of customer needs, the company says. It also acts as a complementary component of Orica’s “new solutions offerings”.

Orica’s current exposure is to leaching agents and emulsifiers, with cyanide making up its biggest product today.

As one of the largest producers of sodium cyanide for mining, Orica delivers the leaching agent in briquette form in circa-1 tonne boxes that are easily containerised, or within an Orica-designed Sparge isotainer system, or in liquid form via purpose-built iso tanks suitable for safe road or rail transport around the world.

It relies on the Yarwun, Gladstone Cyanide Manufacturing Facility in Queensland for this supply, which has an annual capacity of 95,000 t/y and is compliant with ISO9002 and the International Cyanide Management Code. This facility is complemented by the company’s sodium cyanide transfer stations in Peru, Ghana and Malaysia.

Hall was positive about potential growth opportunities in the cyanide space, explaining demand for cyanide was expected to outpace the predicted growth in gold ore treated to 2026 as the complexities involved with treating orebodies continued to increase.

He said the Yarwun facility had great brownfield growth opportunities around the site, with the company evaluating potential expansions in the region of “high single digit” or “low double digit” percentages.

Hall was equally positive about cyanide retaining its presence in the gold leaching process, saying that, while substitution questions continued to come up, the realities associated with such a transition meant it was infrequently feasible.

“There is one major mine that has switched away from using cyanide into a different reagent,” he said. “That cost them north of $100 million, and our understanding is they would not necessarily do it again. Also, that specific mine has a certain lithography that lent itself to using that reagent.”

Hall said Orica’s emulsifiers – which allow it to differentiate its explosives products through maintaining the stability of the mixture – represented “a small but mighty part” of the company’s product suite. He saw potential growth opportunities for emulsifiers, which he said contained the “secret sauce for emulsification”.

Outside of these two Orica mainstays, Hall highlighted the potential for Orica to play in both flotation and solvent extraction markets as part of growth opportunities that added up to A$23 billion ($16 billion).

In flotation, collectors, frothers and flocculants are integral to optimising the process. The same can be said for solvent extractants in the SX space.

“We see all of these as potentially interesting for Orica,” Hall said. “These are all big fields…but each of them has something we could potentially partner or bring to our clients, and something we will be looking to do over the next five years or so.”

Partnerships could potentially see Orica team up with big chemical players that have a by-product or comparatively small value stream coming out of an integrated facility where Orica could bring its “deep understanding of what the miners need and how we can deliver against that using the products that are produced”, he explained.

This could see Orica act as an agent, an offtaker, or purchaser of the by-product production unit.

As with all other Orica verticals, the Chemicals business will be looking at any potential bolt-on to the emulsifier and cyanide offering as a way to influence more of the value chain, ensuring changes made up- or down-stream provide value throughout the full flowsheet.

Nalco Water leverages technology, service and digital tools to introduce Flotation 360

Nalco Water, an Ecolab company, has announced the launch of Flotation 360, a holistic approach to flotation in mineral processing.

The solution combines Nalco Water’s advanced frother and collector chemistries with a worldwide technical service team and digital diagnostic tools that monitor the chemical, operational and mechanical levers influencing performance, Nalco Water says.

The company explained: “Mineral processing plants face the dual pressures of responding to growing demand while also adapting to increased variability. Variability can come from many outside influences, including changes in the orebody itself, shifting customer demand or quality requirements, natural resource constraints and more. To manage increased demand and minimise the impacts of variability, mining companies must be more agile than ever, continuing to evolve their production strategies.”

The Flotation 360 solution combines existing chemistry programs, new digital diagnostic tools and a cross-functional service team in a comprehensive package that includes:

  • A variety of advanced frothers and collectors;
  • Digital diagnostic tools that tap into existing IoT at customer sites and use algorithms to give both real-time diagnostics and predictive analytics on several flotation factors, which enables Nalco Water to offer actionable insights on performance;
  • A service team with a global network of service engineers, consultants and lab personnel that measure and monitor a variety of performance indicators, then recommend and implement changes to customer systems.

When combined, these three elements enable Nalco Water to give customers end-to-end support for their flotation circuits – customers have a partner to supply the chemistry and then monitor its efficacy, as well as overall system performance, the company says.

Arjan Boogaards, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Global Mining, Ecolab Industrial, says: “Flotation 360 is a game-changing innovation. The solution is unique in its combination of advanced chemistry, technical expertise, digital innovation and predictive, actionable insights to achieve the highest level of flotation optimisation. This ultimately translates to a positive impact on product recovery and grade.”

In addition to the improvements for overall recovery and grade, the increased visibility offered by Flotation 360’s real time and predictive analytics can help a customer achieve multiple benefits, such as reduced float cell valve failures, reduced troubleshooting time, optimal chemical reagent dosage and fewer product quality violations or smelter penalties, according to the company.

“At Ecolab, we are always striving to deliver new solutions that combine chemical and technical expertise with the knowledge that only experience can bring,” Boogaards said. “By combining our existing chemical solutions with new digital tools and teams with cross-functional expertise, we are creating a comprehensive, end-to-end flotation solution that is unique in the mining market.”