Episode 7 - CEEC Medal Series - Insights with Prof Neville Plint of UQ Sustainable Minerals Institute (SMI)

CEECing Change - where industry collaborates on eco-efficient minerals

Professor Neville Plint is the Director of the Sustainable Minerals Institute (SMI) at The University of Queensland (UQ) in Australia.

Professor Plint’s extensive background focused on delivering improved operational performance on mining sites by developing and implementing new technologies, whilst establishing a global network of research professionals in academic institutes, mining companies and research organisations.

The 2020 CEEC Medal was won by Dr Grant Ballantyne, for his paper titled “Quantifying the Additional Energy Consumed by Ancillary Equipment and Embodied in Grinding Media in Comminution Circuits”. At the time Dr Ballantyne was working for The Julius Kruttschnitt Mineral Research Centre which is part of the Sustainable Minerals Institute.

• What the CEEC medal means and why it’s important for industry
• The core purpose of the SMI and its work in energy efficiency, productivity and global sustainability
• Grant’s work on energy consumption in comminution and introducing the Energy Curve Benchmarking
• Redesigning the value chain such that we minimise the energy footprint
• What we can learn from success and benchmarking
• Using research data to inform improvements
• Implementing change through collaboration
• The key factors for success in industry’s uptake of eco efficient processing to strive to meet ESG goals
• The challenges of achieving net zero emissions by 2050 and the opportunities this presents
• Advice to support senior mining leaders to invest in good changes
• The importance of community engagement
• SMI’s role in leading change
• Key areas of research
• The importance of research institutes partnering with industry to advance creative ideas