Mineral Processing

Our department’s research in mineral processing, which is used to separate valuable minerals from their ores, focuses on fine and ultrafine particle separation, froth flotation, polymer-assisted approaches to mineral processing, comminution, the rheology of mineral slurries and mineral carbon sequestration.

Our department’s research in mineral processing centers on developing advanced methods to efficiently separate valuable minerals from their ores, a critical step in the mining and resource extraction industries. This involves a suite of processes designed to handle a wide range of particle sizes, from coarse chunks down to fine and ultrafine particles, which present unique challenges due to their surface properties and behavior in suspensions

Find faculty members who specialize in Mineral Processing

Possible Careers

  • Mineral processing engineer
  • Communications engineer
  • Process development engineer (Mineral Processing)

Current Research

Mineral processing involves separating value minerals from their ores into high-grade mineral concentrates, followed by extracting critical metals from these concentrates. Our research in mineral processing includes pretreatment of ores (such as microwave) to facilitate mineral particle size reduction and concentration/separation, and the utilization of all separation forces (gravitational, magnetic, electrostatic and most importantly, interfacial forces) and extraction technologies (hydrometallurgy, pyrometallurgy and electrometallurgy) to recover and extract critical minerals and metals. Examples of current projects include the recovery of critical minerals (titanium, zirconium and rare-earth-element) from oil sands tailings; lithium from hardrock deposits, oilfield brines, and recycled batteries; base metal (nickel, copper) and platinum group metals from complex sulfide ores. Our processing technology development work is built on fundamental studies that underpin the mineral concentration and extraction processes in the domains of colloidal and interfacial sciences, solution chemistry, electrochemistry, fluid mechanics, process modelling and simulation, soft sensing, and process control.