Real Time Instruments delivers world-first n-Gen analyser into Bowen Basin mining
A Queensland firm on the verge of entering operations at a Bowen Basin mine site has developed world-first technology that will be a giant leap for the state’s burgeoning critical minerals play.
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The latest hi-tech offering from Mackay firm Real Time Instruments is about to enter operations at a Bowen Basin mine site and CEO Praanesh Prasad is excited.
“It’s literally days away from going into the Bowen Basin,” he said on Friday.
“This is our fully blown operational n-Gen analyser.”
Mining companies use analysers to determine the quality and make-up of bulk material.
RTI’s tech can measure in excess of 60 elements in real-time and Robin Sheehy, the company’s head of research, said the n-Gen was the only analyser in the world to use a long-life neutron-generator source to analyse elemental composition instead of the traditional PGNAA (prompt gamma neutron activation analysis) technology, which uses a californium (Cf-252) isotope source.
After the installation, Mr Prasad said his company would further test, develop and assemble future n-Gens in collaboration with the Resources Centre of Excellence.
“Every single one is almost bespoke depending on the location it is applied in,” Mr Prasad said.
“It’s not like we’ve got 50 sitting on a shelf.
“Every single one has to be made.”
The company started off in the Bowen Basin but now boasts installations in South America, Africa, India and China.
Mr Prasad said RTI products were also applicable to Queensland’s burgeoning critical minerals industry, or the minerals expected to underpin a range of future technologies.
“Our analysers, very similar to what we have been doing in iron ore and coal and copper, we are helping our clients determine the quality, determine the most efficient chemical process, the most efficient metallurgy, in being able to extract and process these critical minerals,” he said.
Mr Prasad also said his company’s products actively contributed to Net Zero aspirations by improving power plant operations.
“A particular blend of coal that has either ash, sulphur or silica, it can have a few different elements, and each of those elements has a correlation in terms of what pollutants you generate,” he said.
“If you are able to measure accurately and quickly the level of those constituents in your feed, then you can manipulate your blend of feed into the power plant so you get lower pollutants.”
GW3 CEO Kylie Porter says RTI is an exemplar of the kind of Central Queensland businesses that could prosper in the critical minerals age.
“We are certainly well placed to support the sector in terms of research and analysis,” she said.
“Also our skills that we have learned and developed over a long time in the mets sector means we have the expertise to be a service support centre for the critical minerals sector as it grows.
“Our job will be maintenance support for all of that equipment as well as work with research organisations and facilities to develop new techniques and skills to extract and process more efficiently.
“That is what RTI is really doing.”
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Originally published as Real Time Instruments delivers world-first n-Gen analyser into Bowen Basin mining
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