Achieving the large-scale production of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) is crucial for their utilization in applied settings. For many MOFs, quality suffers from large-scale, batch reaction systems. We have developed continuous processes for their production which showed promise owing to their versatility and the high quality of the products. Here, we report the successful upscaling of this concept by more than two orders of magnitude to deliver unprecedented production rates and space-time-yields (STYs) while maintaining the product quality. Encouragingly, no change in the reaction parameters, obtained at small scale, was required. The production of aluminium fumarate was achieved at an STY of 97 159 kg m(-3)  day(-1) and a rate of 5.6 kg h(-1) .

A new continuous process for the direct production of CP titanium powder is being developed at CSIRO. The TiRO™ process has two major steps. The first step is conducted in a fluidised bed where titanium tetrachloride and magnesium powder react to form small (1.5 µm) titanium metal particles uniformly dispersed inside larger spheroidal magnesium chloride particles with an average particle size of 350 µm. The second step involves vacuum distillation in which the magnesium chloride is removed from the titanium. During vacuum distillation the magnesium chloride is volatilised and the micron sized titanium particles come together to form partially sintered predominantly spheroidal porous particles with a similar shape to the starting particle, some which appeared to be hollow. A mechanism for their formation is proposed. The spheroidal particles are all lightly sintered together. The vacuum distilled product was very lightly ground to liberate the spheroidal particles which had an average particle size of about 200 µm. With further grinding an angular Ti powder was produced. The ground titanium was free flowing and had a tap density of 2.4 g/cm3.

Tailings management aims to dispose of tailings at the minimum cost consistent with meeting or exceeding imposed standards, including legislative obligations. This simple business objective requires managing the tailings storage facility (TSF) risks associated with surface water, groundwater, dust, sustainable closure and potential catastrophic failure. The individual nature of every ore body and specific site topography ensures that no 'one size fits all'. It has been suggested that paste and thickened tailings (P&TT) provides the ability to tailor the production and transportation of tailings to suit the deposition site, rather than the traditional approach of accepting that the deposition site has to accommodate tailings of high variability. While the traditional approach can be made to work, it is directly linked to the catastrophic failures of tailings impoundments, where large volumes of decant water have triggered failures due to overtopping, piping or slope instability, or saturated tailings have simply liquefied. P&TT offers an ability to mitigate these risks and when implemented into new projects with variable tailings streams there are significant benefits to be realised. The paper identifies the inter-dependencies between the various tailings disposal processes, such as thickening, pumping and deposition. It demonstrates that there are benefits in taking a more integrated approach to the design and operation of tailings disposal facilities. A collaborative industry project to tackle this challenge is described.

The perceived need for accurate and reliable methods of measuring suspension rheology in real time arises from the greater demands being placed on mineral processing operations. To extend mine life and reduce TSF footprint the adoption of finer grinds, higher solids concentration and high clay ores result in complex multi-phase suspensions that need close monitoring to optimise thickener performance, pipeline transport and tailings deposition. Often the control of the processing or transport of these suspensions can be related to its rheology. However, due to the involved nature of rheological measurement for suspensions and the nuanced interpretation of data necessary to produce useful decisions, rheometry has only seen limited application in process monitoring. A robust unit that can measure, analyse and interpret the rheology of a process stream continuously and unattended is needed. The CSIRO has developed an online rheometer to address this problem. This paper describes the process prior to the deployment of the online rheometer to an Australian goldfield site, comparing online rheological measurement to benchmark laboratory values.

With increasing global demand for nickel (which is a key component of stainless steel) the focus of mineral industry is currently on the abundant low-grade nickel laterite reserves. The extraction of nickel from the low-grade laterites is a technically difficult and expensive process and, as a result, the profitability of nickel production projects is highly affected by uncertainty over future market conditions. The project value can be increased by utilizing flexible operating strategies in response to changing future market conditions and Real Options analysis provides a suitable tool for optimizing flexible operating strategies over a long planning horizon in the face of uncertainty. This paper presents the first study on the valuation of flexible operating strategies in a realistic nickel laterite production system under uncertainty of nickel price and exchange rate. In this paper, the production of ore from the three hypothetical nickel laterite mines being fed to a central processing facility is studied. The common features of nickel laterite production, such as a two-fraction (limonite and saprolite) structure of the laterite ore body, layering of each fraction, with different ore grades (concentration of nickel) in each layer, and a simultaneous mining of several ore bodies, are incorporated into the model. It is common in the minerals industry that the ore from each mine is blended to provide as constant a feed rate and grade as possible to the processing facility. However, such a constant feed strategy may not generate the best financial return. In this paper, we investigate whether higher returns can be achieved by adopting a flexible strategy of switching, at prescribed intervals of time, between different feed rates of ore from the three mines that have different quality of nickel laterite. Such flexible strategy allows the operator to change the production rate of nickel in response to changing projected market conditions. In this paper, we use an approximate stochastic dynamic programming framework in the form of the Least Squares Monte Carlo (LSM) method, which we extend to multiple switching options problem that incorporates complex features of nickel laterite production. In addition, an approach that combines a genetic algorithm (GA) with the Monte Carlo simulations is developed for preliminary assessment of options and for estimating the upper bounds on the strategy values. We compare the value (in terms of the expected discounted cash flow) of the optimal profit-maximising switching strategy for 10 year planning horizon with the NPV value of a constant feed strategy, commonly used in the mining industry. Numerical results show that the flexibility to selectively blend the ore from each mine in response to projected market conditions considerably increases the expected cash flow and the probability of larger profits, while decreasing the probability of smaller profits.