Water reporting using the water accounting framework

Water reporting is becoming increasingly common amongst minerals companies. The Minerals Council of Australia’s (MCA) Water Accounting Framework (WAF), co-developed by the Centre for Water in the Minerals Industry (CWiMI), provides a standard set of terms for water reporting. The WAF was established due to the need of the minerals industry to report on its water management consistently, rather than report using company-specific terms which can cause confusion and makes company comparisons impossible. The WAF consists of two models: The Input-Output Model, which represents interactions between a site and its surrounding community and environment, and the Operational Model, which represents the interactions within a site.

A robust methodology for developing an operational systems view of mine water interactions

The Minerals Council of Australia’s (MCA) Water Accounting Framework (WAF) is an industry lead initiative to enable cross company communication and comparisons of water management performance. The WAF consists of two models, the Input-Output Model that represents water interactions between an operation and its surrounding environment and the Operational Model that represents water interactions within an operation. Recently, MCA member companies have agreed to use the Input-Output Model to report on their external water interactions in Australian operations, with some adopting it globally. The next step will be to adopt the Operational Model. This will expand the functionality of the WAF from corporate reporting to allowing widespread identification of inefficiencies and to connect internal and external interactions. Implementing the WAF, particularly the Operational Model, is non-trivial. It can be particularly difficult for operations that are unfamiliar with the WAF definitions and methodology, lack information pertaining to flow volumes or contain unusual configurations. Therefore, there is a need to help industry with its implementation. This work presents a step-by-step guide to producing the Operational Model. It begins by describing a methodology for implementing the Operational Model by describing the identification of pertinent objects (stores, tasks and treatments), quantification of flows, aggregation of objects and production of reports. It then discusses how the Operational Model can represent a series of challenging scenarios and how it can be connected with Input-Output Model to improve water management.

The prediction and representation of phase equilibria and physicochemical properties in complex slag systems

The development of new experimental techniques for the determination of phase equilibria in complex slag systems, chemical thermodynamic, and viscosity models is reported. The new experimental data, and new thermodynamic and viscosity models, have been combined in a custom-designed computer software package to produce limiting operability diagrams for slag systems. These diagrams are used to describe phase equilibria and physicochemical properties in complex slag systems. The approach is illustrated with calculations on the system FeO-Fe2O3-CaO-SiO-Al2O3 at metallic iron saturation, slags produced in coal slagging gasifiers, and in the reprocessing of nonferrous smelting slags. This article was presented at the Mills Symposium Molten Metals, Slags and Glasses-Characterisation of Properties and Phenomena held in London in August 2000.

General discussion session of the 2004 Hume-Rothery Symposium on "The structure and diffusional growth mechanisms of irrational interphase boundaries"

Details on the general discussion session of the 2004 Hume-Rothery Symposium on "The Structure and Diffusional Growth Mechanisms of Irrational Interphase Boundaries" is presented. The symposium was held on Mar 17, 2004 at the Charlotte Convention Center in Charlotte NC.

Phase equilibria in high MgO ferro- and silico-manganese smelting slags

Phase equilibria have been determined experimentally for pseudo-ternary sections of the form “MnO”- (CaO+MgO)-(SiO2+Al2O3) with a fixed Al2O3/SiO2 weight ratio of 0.17 and MgO/CaO weight ratios of 0.25 and 0.17 respectively for temperatures in the range 1473-1673 K. The primary phase fields present for the MgO/CaO weight ratio of 0.17 include manganosite (Mn,Mg,Ca)O; dicalcium silicate α-2(Ca,Mg,Mn)O·SiO2; merwinite 3CaO⋅(Mg,Mn)O⋅2SiO2; wollastonite [(Ca,Mg,Mn)O·SiO2]; diopside [(CaO,MgO,MnO,Al2O3)·SiO2]; tridymite (SiO2); tephroite [2(Mn,Mg)O·SiO2]; rhodonite [(Mn,Mg)O·SiO2] and melilite [2CaO·(MgO,MnO,Al2O3)·2(SiO2,Al2O3)]. For the section with MgO/CaO weight ratio of 0.25 the anorthite phase (CaO⋅Al2O3⋅2SiO2) is also present. The liquidus temperatures of ferro- and silico-manganese smelting slags have been determined. The liquidus temperatures at low MnO concentrations are shown to be principally dependent on the modified basicity weight ratio (CaO+MgO)/(SiO2+Al2O3).

Transpassivation of Fe-Cr-Ni stainless steels

A transpassivation model was proposed for Fe–Cr–Ni stainless steels. In this model, the important steps and processes involved in transpassivation were illustrated. With some reasonable assumptions, transpassivation behaviours were predicted, such as the changes in film composition, film thickness, anodic current density and AC impedance spectrum in transpassive and secondary passive regions. It was demonstrated that these theoretical predictions were in good agreement with experimentally observed transpassivity of Fe–Cr–Ni stainless steels.