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Sustainable Development

Our approach to sustainability is found in the solutions we provide for our clients, spanning the entire project lifecycle, from design and construction to operations and maintenance.

Our strategic partnerships also demonstrate our commitment to sustainable development and our desire to play a meaningful role in the decarbonisation transition as we collectively work towards the goal of net zero by 2050.

Dry Mining Unit (DMU) – Innovative Modular Solution

The Dry Mining Unit (DMU) represents the radical marriage of underwater track crawler technology with high-capacity skid-mounted materials handling and sand pumping systems, into a single remotely controlled mobile sand processing machine.

The unit allows for large tonnage run-of-mine (ROM) material to be efficiently pumped at high densities to processing facilities, reducing tramming distance and therefore decreasing the use of front-end loaders (FELs), excavators, articulated dump trucks (ADT’s) and consequently the consumption of diesel fuel on site.

 

The remotely operated tracked unit receives mineral sand ROM in excess of 1500 tph from cycling FELs into a ROM bin. This material is drawn out via a feeder at a controlled tonnage, discharged via a pulping chute, fluidised and screened into a wet bin.  Thereafter it is drawn out and pumped up to two kilometres by a centrifugal pump and booster stations to the wet concentrator plant. The DMU is mobile and relocated every seven days to follow the mining face.

The technology represents an innovative operating cost saving asset for clients in the mineral sands environment and could also be used in other operations where sand or fine overburden material can be slurried and pumped to either a concentrator plant or a tailings facility.

The efficiency compared to conventional tramming is substantial, with the machine relocated regularly to keep tramming distance to a minimum, thereby lowering diesel fuel consumption and carbon emissions. It is estimated that the power saving will be significant compared to the conventional load and haul method.

 

The Dry Mining Unit (DMU) offers the following special features:

  • No man to machine interface required for relocation – a safety imperative.
  • Increased production availability due to ease of equipment mobility and speed of relocation.
  • Reduced operating costs as the unit is fully self-supported and requires no additional EMV to relocate modules.
  • Single, robust remote controlled tracked vehicle.
  • Remotely operated via pendant requiring no physical ‘hands-on’ human interaction or machinery to tow or push during relocation.
  • Heavy duty, robust material feeder used in many mining operations.
  • Heavy duty tracks and drive system from world leader in track drive systems.
  • Diesel generator to allow machine relocation while being disconnected from HT umbilical power supply.
  • Hard wearing rubber screen panels.
  • Steel lined slurry pumping system.
  • On board service hoists and beam crawlers for ease of maintenance.
  • Fully automated slurry control system loops.
  • Customised, pressurised and ventilated motor control centre.
  • On-board medium voltage supply transformer.
  • High accuracy level of density and velocity control.

 

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ATA™ Technology – Repurposing Waste

ADP has designed and constructed a unit to implement ATA™ technology on a mine site. Developed by Soane Energy, ATA™ comprises three basic components – an Activator polymer, a Tether polymer, and an Anchor particle – to convert mineral waste slurry into two discrete products, being a dewatered solid that possesses sufficient mechanical integrity for landfill, construction and / or reclamation, and a clean water stream that can be immediately reused on site. Maximally recycling the clean water significantly reduces the need for fresh raw water.​

 

The unit is containerized and designed for easy relocation for test work at different facilities. It receives process tailings online and measures and tests all process variables as the sample is treated using the ATA™ process.

Designed to cater for a wide range of feed types, it also simulates various dewatering and mixing scenarios to pilot all processes that may be employed in the full-scale plant. The unit is currently in test phase at a diamond mine in Southern Africa and all process data currently being recorded will be used to generate a design envelope for the full system. Subsequent to this pilot phase, ADP has received an order to advance to design a production scale ATA system for the same mine.

This modularized unit, enabling ATA™ technology to be implemented at the source location where the waste is generated, will significantly reduce the amount of water required for mineral processing.

A significant reduction in process water requirements will materially reduce the demand for water in dry regions where water supplies are “stressed” and shared with local communities.

In addition, the dewatered tailings are recycled as a solid by-product with immediate reuse for construction material, among other things, reducing the consumption of imported materials with their associated carbon footprint.

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Digital Engineering – Development of Internal Capability

FY2024 has seen significant advancements of Lycopodium’s digital engineering capability. For most mines the optimal service lies along a continuum between a normal operating plant using distributed control systems (DCS) and supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA), and a fully connected digital twin. Our focus is on supporting our clients to assess (ideally during the early study phases) their optimal service, ensuring the engineering incorporates an efficient, cost effective and fit-for-purpose digital solution to augment our standard engineering service offering. Lead by ADP in Cape Town, the development of our capability over recent years has been three pronged.

Firstly, plant dynamic modelling. This involves extensive use of both dynamic as well as discrete event simulation tools. We have recently completed a detailed proof of concept, off-line digital twin of a flotation plant for a major tier one mine. This involved developing a high-fidelity ‘thin slice’ dynamic simulation and connecting it into the owner’s virtual control system (including, in due course, advanced process control) ahead of development of a planned operator training simulator. This allowed ADP to develop the necessary understanding for connecting our high-fidelity plant simulation to the virtual as well as operational control systems. The objective being to assist in plant efficient commissioning, training, and early ramp-up. Ultimately the intent is to display both virtual and actual tags in real-time for local operations as well as remote plant optimisation purposes.

ADP has furthermore initiated service level agreements for both development and operational use of our modelling for overall plant optimisation of existing operations in Southern Africa. Andritz, as a partner, together with OMC, are key subject matter experts (SME) in the development and implementation of this capability. In diamonds this is used for both predicting plant performance and carat recovery performance, as well as optimising mine blending and production/revenue profiling, on a routine basis. We are applying this modelling experience into gold, lithium, lead-zinc, fluorspar, diamonds, iron ore and other commodities.

Secondly, we are using the best-of-breed platforms to develop static digital twins (advanced plant engineering version of Building Information Modelling, including 4D and 5D engineering modelling). These static digital twins become the user interface for life-of-mine operations including connected digital twins. The static digital twin also serves as the single source of truth for life-of-mine data management for all relevant plant related information (design and operations data).

Thirdly, we are integrating both the dynamic and static digital twins into an overall connected twin that can extend (together with our mining digital software partner, Sight Power) to a mine-wide digital twin solution.

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