Resources Centre of Excellence to test Bowen Basin mine site minerals

How a Mackay hub can turn the big mounds of dirt from mining in the Bowen Basin to materials used to make phones, laptops and renewable energy.

Odds are you are reading this story on an iPhone, a laptop, or some other type of device.

Devices that, without critical minerals, could not have been made.

Mackay’s Resource Centre of Excellence will provide a Critical Minerals Testing and Commercialisation Centre within its upcoming new Greater Whitsunday ‘Future Industries’ Delivery Hub, which will test different critical minerals from deposits across Bowen Basin mines.

The Greater Whitsunday 'Future Industries' Delivery Hub will be located on the eastern side of the RCOE building. Picture: Bold Architecture

Critical mineral testing and a commercialisation centre will be part of the Hub’s next development stage to allow prospectors to have their products tested “locally and quickly”.

RCOE General Manager Steven Boxall said miners and prospectors were reprocessing tailings at existing mine sites to extract critical minerals and other minerals.

“It’s a really critical thing, from an environmental perspective, for extending the life cycle or life span of a mine site. It’s very visionary,” he said.

Greater Whitsunday Alliance CEO Kylie Porter said many of the new critical (or economy) minerals were “very high value” because of the role they played in new emerging battery technology, renewable energy technology, and products like mobile phones and electric vehicles.

Concept plans detailing Resources Centre of Excellence's new Greater Whitsunday 'Future Industries' Delivery Hub. Picture: Bold Architecture

“They are really important for us in terms of our future evolution as being a technologically advanced society,” Ms Porter said.

“They have been around forever, but it’s just the importance of them is becoming more apparent as we look for new ways of doing things that make our societies more efficient, less and carbon dense.

“Critical minerals testing … will extract those minerals from the earth, taking a couple tonnes of dirt and extracting very small but highly valuable critical minerals that can be used.”

The Greater Whitsunday 'Future Industries' Delivery Hub will be delivered in three separate stages. Picture: Bold Architecture

While mineral processing is currently used in some areas across the Bowen Basin, it is the first time it will be offered within Mackay.

“A centre like this at RCOE can tap into a new evolution of mining,” Ms Porter said.

“Our region is really recognised for high expertise skills and knowledge in metallurgical coal mining extraction and we want to apply all those credentials to the new frontier of mining.”