Tag Archives: GlyCat

Draslovka goes commercial with GlyCat leaching at Barrick’s Buylanhulu

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Draslovka a.s., a provider of sustainability-led technologies, reagents and services for mining and the energy transition, has progressed its previously announced partnership with Barrick Gold and, today, announces the start of commercial use of its revolutionary glycine leaching technology for gold, GlyCat™, at Barrick’s Buylanhulu operation in Tanzania.

In addition, Draslovka and Barrick’s strategic partnership will now include a broader testing program in 2024 that will span multiple mining sites.

At Bulyanhulu Gold Mine, the GlyCat pilot program has led to an 80% reduction in cyanide consumption while achieving gold recoveries that are comparable with traditional cyanidation, Draslovka says. With GlyCat as part of the process, the mine’s tailings show undetectable levels of WAD and are free of cyanide, thereby reducing detoxification requirements and costs.

Pavel Bruzek Jr, CEO of Draslovka, said: “This licensing agreement follows a highly successful pilot programme that proved the major benefits GlyCat offers to the gold mining industry. GlyCat provides significant economic and sustainability benefits at a time when the future of mining is conditional on cost savings, sustainable operations and securing social license to operate. I look forward to continuing to work with Barrick and am confident others in the sector will soon see that GlyCat is revolutionary and its development will enable a major shift for the gold mining industry through massive economic and environmental benefits. Barrick was the first major mining company to recognise the potential glycine leaching offers and it is a pleasure and honour to work with the team on its commitment to sustainable operations.”

Simon Bottoms, Barrick Mineral Resource Management & Evaluations Executive, added: “The application of GlyCat technology within our operations has significant potential to deliver improved operational efficiencies and cost savings, whilst also improving our environmental legacy. Consequently, we are very pleased to embark upon this strategic partnership with Draslovka to take advantage of this innovative technology across our global operations.”

Bayan Airag Exploration achieves world first with Draslovka’s glycine leaching tech

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Draslovka a.s., a specialty chemicals company, has executed a user license with Bayan Airag Exploration LLC in Mongolia for the world’s first application of its proprietary glycine gold leaching process, GlyCat™, in a commercial heap leaching application.

Application of the technology has commenced to extract gold from ores mined from its Golden Hills and Limestone Ridge pits.

The decision to fully implement the technology on its heap leach operations was made following site-based testing and culminating in a 1,000-tonne trial heap leach, according to Draslovka. The collaboration involved staff from Draslovka’s Perth-based mining innovation centre and Bayan Airag site-based staff.

The recent heap leach trial demonstrated higher recoveries than conventional cyanidation, with 78% overall gold recovery, the company said. This was achieved with a 65% reduction in cyanide and high recyclability of the glycine. Overall, due to high cyanide unit costs, the total reagent costs are projected to be reduced by over 70%.

The Bayan Airag mines are located in a part of Mongolia where temperatures are regularly sub-zero, making the trial and forward commercial application of the technology of interest to other cold climate applications globally.

Ivor Bryan, Chief Technology Officer of Draslovka Mining Solutions, said: “GlyCat’s use in heap leaching applications demonstrates equivalent or better recoveries and step change reduction in operating costs. This provides opportunities for our clients to extend mine life and convert uneconomic ores and wastes into viable metal production opportunities.

“We look forward to expanding our strong relationship with Bayan Airag as it considers other projects in its area of operations and as a foundation for further applications in Mongolia.”

Peter Thompson, Chief Executive Officer of Bayan Airag, added: “At Bayan Airag where we often have challenges in cyanide supply and costs, we saw the GlyCat process as an opportunity to reduce our reliance on cyanide and to use a much more eco-friendly alternative that provides sustainability to our Mongolian business and improved outcomes to the community in which we work. It also gives us an advantage for when we encounter high levels of copper in our gold-silver ore.

“We are proud that the Bayan Airag mine is the first mine in Mongolia to use GlyCat and the first instance of commercial implementation of GlyCat in a heap leach anywhere in the world.”

Draslovka about to move into glycine leaching mining demonstration phase

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Czech Republic-based Draslovka Holding is heading into a busy 12-month period where its glycine leaching technology will be showcased at numerous mining projects across the globe, the company told IM on the side lines of the Resourcing Tomorrow conference, in London, this week.

According to Ivor Bryan, Director of Mining Innovation at Draslovka Mining Solutions and the former MD of Mining & Process Solutions (MPS), the entity responsible for the development of the GlyCat™ and GlyLeach™ technologies, the company is embarking on around 10 projects in the mining space, which will prove up the 3,500 hours of testing that has been conducted at MPS’ facilities in Perth, Western Australia.

MPS was acquired by Draslovka, a major sodium cyanide producer in 2022, with the aim of the transaction being to grow and develop the glycine leaching business.

Gold leach testing via GlyCat has been the major area of focus over the last decade. The process was invented to reduce cyanide consumption while maintaining gold recovery for gold ores from deposits containing nuisance copper. It has been designed to enhance the dissolution of gold and copper in gold/copper ores where glycine is used as a catalyst with cyanide in a cyanide-starved leaching environment. It doesn’t replace cyanide, but, in fact, enhances its leaching capabilities by dealing with the high-cyanide consuming copper within these gold-copper orebodies.

Yet, the company is also now starting to make inroads into the base metal space through GlyLeach, with nickel and cobalt two specific areas of interest. The technology is able to leach the targeted metals with enhanced selectivity compared with conventional methods. It will solubilise copper, nickel, cobalt and zinc, while gangue minerals such as iron, manganese, silicates and carbonates remain in the leach residue, Draslovka says.

This is allowing the company to promote that it can reduce the capital expenditure associated with processing these metals by removing the need for smelting, or in the case of tailings deposits, helping recover metal from assets previously written off as ‘waste’.

While the technology could have applications at run of mine operations, Bryan and his colleague Jackson Briggs, Corporate Development Manager of Draslovka, believe the most immediate opportunity is in tailings where the application of glycine leaching on ‘waste’ material could recover valuable metals while reducing the potential liabilities associated with such storage facilities.

Of the 10 or so projects the company has ahead of it, one is situated in Western Australia where the company is looking to recover nickel and cobalt metals from a tailings deposit of a major mining company.

Another project – much closer to fruition – is in Chile and involves leaching a carbonate-hosted copper oxide deposit containing some 600 t of material.

In both cases, the company is looking to demonstrate that it can recover valuable metals at high recovery rates, with low impact – namely rationalising reagent and water use and, in the case of nickel-cobalt, removing smelting from the equation.

This, according to Draslovka CEO, Pavel Bruzek, is a “win-win” for mining companies and their stakeholders, benefitting both the balance sheet and the operational environmental footprint.

“While we are a major sodium cyanide producer, when we saw the potential of MPS’ glycine leaching technology and the increase in metallurgical complexity of orebodies looking to be exploited, it made perfect sense to work with and promote this technology,” he told IM. “It is the responsible thing to do for the industry.”

Draslovka eyes base metal leaching prize with MPS glycine technology

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Draslovka Holding made its presence felt in the mining chemicals space about a year ago when it announced plans to acquire Chemours Company’s Mining Solutions business, a deal that has since seen it become one of the largest North American producers of solid sodium cyanide.

This acquisition, completed in December for $521 million, also laid the groundwork for a separate transaction that could see the Czech Republic-based company diversify into the in-demand battery metals arena.

Australia-based Mining & Process Solutions (MPS) had been on the Mining Solutions business radar for at least two years prior to the Draslovka transaction, according to James Stockbridge, Director of Draslovka Mining Solutions. Stockbridge, formerly of Chemours and DuPont, said that his team at Draslovka realised MPS had something on its books that could solve many of the challenges the industry was experiencing and transform mining solutions by using an amino acid called glycine.

“For more than a decade now, the industry has recognised that orebodies are becoming lower grade, processing them is becoming more complex and the environmental regulations associated with leaching are becoming stricter,” Stockbridge told IM.

“It is the challenge of our time, and we think MPS has something quite unique to offer here.”

With roots in the gold technology group at the renowned Curtin University in Western Australia, MPS’ glycine leaching technology has the potential to change both the gold and base metal leaching space.

In gold, MPS’ GlyCat™ process was invented to reduce cyanide consumption while maintaining gold recovery for gold ores from deposits containing nuisance copper. GlyCat has been designed to enhance the dissolution of gold and copper in gold/copper ores where glycine is used as a catalyst with cyanide in a cyanide-starved leaching environment. It doesn’t replace cyanide, but, in fact, enhances its leaching capabilities by dealing with the high-cyanide consuming copper within these gold-copper orebodies.

In copper, nickel, cobalt and zinc leaching, GlyLeach™ is able to leach the targeted metals with enhanced selectivity compared with conventional methods. It will solubilise copper, nickel, cobalt and zinc, while gangue minerals such as iron, manganese, silicates and carbonates remain in the leach residue, MPS says.

Both technologies are environmentally safe, work effectively at alkaline pHs and ambient temperatures (with no heating cost or pressure vessels) and come with low operating costs due to their low consumption and recovery/recycling traits, according to the company.

While it is the gold side of glycine leaching testing that has, so far, taken the headlines thanks to several trials with mining companies in Australia (including Evolution Mining) and the technology’s potential ability to partially replace cyanide in the leaching process, Stockbridge and his colleague Jackson Briggs (Corporate Development Manager for Draslovka) said Draslovka was most excited about what the technology could offer the base metal space.

Briggs said: “It gives us the opportunity to expand our leadership position in gold leaching agents into base metals. At the same time, it also allows us to incorporate our expertise in that chemistry and chemical manufacturing side of things.”

Stockbridge – not wanting to give away too much – hinted at how this latter opportunity could play out.

“The leaching technology will also influence the way you, for instance, operate, monitor and control the plant,” he said. “This process will be different, and we will be bringing in new technologies to cater to this.”

Considering Draslovka can produce glycine from its existing hydrogen cyanide production footprint, there is potential for a very smooth integration on the supply chain side of things.

Asked to quantify some of the benefits of the technology, Stockbridge was happy to point out GlyLeach’s potential to “simplify the flowsheet” for, say, nickel production, removing the smelting aspect and resultant ore transportation – providing capital and carbon footprint benefits.

Briggs added: “It can change a lot from ore-to-ore with GlyLeach, but, in a really strong business case, you are looking at a 25% reduction in processing costs.”

This is on top of a 10-35% improvement on the recovery side, compared with conventional leaching, Stockbridge said, citing “proof of concept” studies.

As for GlyCat, the sweet spot – as already hinted at – is in gold-copper orebodies where copper is a large cyanide consumer, with the technology allowing cyanide to work more efficiently and effectively.

Both technologies recently featured in OZ Minerals Ingenious Extraction Innovator challenge outcomes publication, while GlyCat has also been the subject of a one-off study looking at combining it with Sixth Wave Innovations’ IXOS® molecular imprinted polymer for gold extraction.

Australia’s Future Battery Industry Cooperative Research Centre, which is sponsored by the likes of Sandfire Resources, Barrick Gold, Coda Minerals (previously Gindalbie Metals) and Poseidon Nickel, is also coordinating some of the work towards commercialising GlyLeach.

There is a strong business case for both technologies first being deployed at scale on tailings deposits that have been deemed to have no associated value – a point both Stockbridge and Briggs acknowledged.

Briggs said: “In terms of accelerating the development of the technologies, there are tailings deposits and waste piles situated all over the globe with high amounts of precious and base metals that have not been extracted due to the limitations and economies associated with current processing technology. We could provide an economic way of extracting those.

“It would also provide us a project with much reduced start-up times compared with, say, a greenfield project.”

Stockbridge added: “We have carried out some work on this type of application before and believe there is the potential to extract 50% of the nickel that they couldn’t access with existing technology by using GlyLeach.”

From the mining company perspective, deploying a new technology on material already written off comes with a lot less risk too.

That is before appreciating that the material won’t have to be smelted on site, that the process produces no free cyanide and that gangue materials do not come out in solution.

It is no wonder the Draslovka duo are excited about the technology’s potential; GlyLeach in particular.

“The ability to help nickel and copper miners produce more metal to rescue some of these deposits that have been forgotten or under-developed because of technology limitations and be able to do so in a way that is more environmentally friendly is exciting.

“Potentially, this technology could help localise more electric vehicle supply chains by removing the need for smelting and providing a cost-effective and environmentally friendly means of extracting metals.

“We cannot wait to get started.”

Evolution Mining studying open-pit, underground expansion options at Cowal

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Evolution Mining says it is embarking on a prefeasibility study to further expand its Cowal open-pit mine as part of a plan to build towards 350,000 oz/y of sustainable, reliable, low-cost gold production from the New South Wales operation.

Currently on the E42 stage H cutback, Evolution said during a recent site visit that there is potential to further the life of the open pit by accessing feed from the E41 and E46 satellite pits. The study looking into a possible expansion is due later this year, with the company saying it could provide long-term base load ore feed for the operation.

The mine produced 262,000 ounces in Evolution’s 2020 financial year.

The Stage H cutback the company is currently pursuing is expected to see increased ore volumes and grade mined in the first six months of this year, with the strip ratio to fall below 1:1 in its 2023 financial year, Evolution said. It also says an equipment strategy review is underway, with opportunities to “rationalise fleet” with reduced re-handling.

The haulage and loading fleet at Cowal currently consists of 20 Cat 789C dump trucks, three Cat 785C trucks, four excavators (one Liebherr 9400, one Liebherr 994B, one Liebherr 9200 and one Hitachi EX1200), plus three Cat 992G wheel loaders. It also has six hired Epiroc SmartROC surface drills at the operation, one Drill Rigs Australia GC600 drill rig, five Cat D10T tracked dozers and one Cat 834H wheel dozer.

The open-pit expansion is only part of the expansion story at Cowal, with a feasibility study underway on an underground operation. This is factoring in 3 Moz of resources and 1 Moz of reserves, with high-grade orebodies open at depth, the company says.

A second decline (Galway) is due to be developed at Cowal this year, with diamond drilling set to commence next month. The 14,300 m of planned drilling will, the company says, help confirm optimal grade control parameters and convert resources to reserves.

Evolution Mining also has a permit to increase processing capacity at Cowal to 9.8 Mt/y, with near-term incremental improvements targeting a circa-9 Mt/y rate.

The process flowsheet at Cowal includes primary crushing with a Metso Outotec 54-75 Superior MK-II gyratory, grinding with an FLSmidth 36 ft (11 m) x 20.5 ft (6.2 m) SAG mill and FLSmidth 22 ft x 36.5 ft ball mill, and screening with Schenck and Delkor screens. Sandvik H6800 hydroconecone crushers, Metso Outotec flotation cells, a Metso Outotec Vertimill, and Metso Outotec stirred media detritors also feature.

Evolution also said it is testing technology that uses glycine and cyanide during the cyanidation process of gold ore at Cowal for potential significant cost savings and environmental benefits.

Lab trials with the GlyCat™ technology from Australia-based Mining and Process Solutions have been completed successfully, it said, with the next phase being pilot plant trials to assess variability tests and long-term environmental impacts.

Sixth Wave and MPS team up to cut cyanide usage, costs in gold processing

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Sixth Wave Innovations says it is working with Australia-based Mining and Process Solutions (MPS) on test work initiatives in North America and Australia integrating Sixth Wave’s commercially available IXOS® molecular imprinted polymer for gold extraction with the MPS GlyCat™ process.

The GlyCat process was invented to reduce cyanide consumption while maintaining gold recovery for gold ores from deposits containing nuisance copper. For gold applications, the IXOS platform, meanwhile, is capable of selectively targeting gold while rejecting contaminants such as copper, mercury, and other non-target elements potentially contained in a gold-bearing cyanide leach solution.

The two companies are also working in collaboration with the Centre Technologique des Résidus Industriels (CTRI) and a top 10 gold producer in Canada. This project aims to develop an environmentally-friendly flowsheet for the gold mining industry, examining MPS’ acidic and alkaline leaching technologies, together with Sixth Wave’s molecular imprinted IXOS resin technology for the extraction of gold from alternative lixiviants. Testing is to be undertaken on ores provided by the Canadian mining partner, Sixth Wave said.

A recent study published in the Hydrometallurgy Journal titled ‘Gold recovery from cyanide-starved glycine solutions (Glycat) in the presence of Cu using molecularly imprinted polymer IXOS-AuC’ found that “gold recovery increased, while copper recovery decreased with the increasing gold concentration”, Sixth Wave said. The adsorption behaviour of IXOS-AuC had “the best selectivity compared to three other gold selective resins”, the study added. Other outcomes from the study showed the IXOS-AuC polymer was very robust, allowing reuse without deterioration of the polymer physically (assessed by scanning electron microscopy) or in performance.

“Our collaboration with MPS is an important initiative for Sixth Wave and our IXOS high performance gold extraction products,” Dr Jon Gluckman, President & CEO of Sixth Wave, said. “The industry is keenly interested in new and innovative approaches to leach and recover gold as a replacement, in whole or in part, for conventional processes. In order to focus on lowering capital expenditure and operating expenditure, and to comply with environmental and regulatory constraints, Sixth Wave is extremely interested in leveraging our technology with the benefits of the MPS glycine leaching and recovery process.”

Ivor Bryan, Managing Director of MPS, said: “Our respective technological approaches can bring tremendous value to prospective customers by significantly cutting cyanide usage along with the associated costs and environmental impact.”

Earlier this week, Sixth Wave Innovations signed a non-binding Letter of Intent to trial its IXOS purification polymer at the Rio2 Ltd-owned Fenix gold project in Chile.