Abstract
Society’s plans for a decarbonized world will rely on renewable energy and transport electrification which increase the demand for critical minerals. The mining industry, contributing between 4% to 7% of global emissions, has set year 2050 for Net Zero as its target for decarbonization. Meeting this demand for clean energy minerals, against a backdrop of growing operational/environmental constraints, calls for innovations and the adoption of clean technologies.
The assessment of precious metals content in mineral ore at different stages of the mining value chain is a key element of the mining process involving these precious elements, in particular for the extraction of copper and nickel ores which are associated with precious metals. Geologists and mining operators would definitely benefit from a quick and accurate method that would allow the in-situ determination of Au, Pd, Pt concentration in several locations in the mine, such as on the surface of tunnel walls, or directly in ore samples, such as chips or muck piles. Exploration of precious metals is very challenging because the cut-off grade continues to decrease with time, as the value of the metals increase. Some critical metals such as nickel or copper most likely to be associated with these precious elements. This emphasizes the need for new and fast techniques for assessing the content of precious elements in order to avoid treating gang ore and improve the productivity, efficiency in the field and saving energy.
Recently NRC has successfully developed a field portable prototype, which allowed for the first time in-situ detection of precious metals content below ppm level in mineral ore sample and also to provide information on mineralogy of the ore. Such real-time fast analysis of precious metals helps geologists and engineers make on-the-spot decisions, upgrading the ore by preventing sending gangue to the mill and proficiently manage their mining projects and reduce energy consumption.
In this presentation, we will introduce and describe a breakthrough functional portable LIBS analyzer designed for in-situ measurements, which has been tested underground, in a mining environment for gold. In addition, its performance in terms of sensitivity and limits of detection will also be presented for Pt, Pd and Au. Results of measurements performed on mineral samples will be showed and a comparison with lab analysis measurements will be done and discussed with focus on Pt, Pd and Au in mineral ore samples.