Over the last few years, mineral testwork provider Maelgwyn Mineral Services Africa’s laboratory capabilities have expanded in accordance with industry demand.

Leveraging its collective experience in extractive metallurgy, Maelgwyn offers its customers clear processing definition through desktop, concept and feasibility level studies on common sulphide and nonsulphide minerals, and, more recently, coal fines beneficiation.

The laboratory covers a range of capabilities in the beneficiation chain – from ore assessment, comminution, upgrading and extraction to residue detoxification, including pilot-scale capabilities.

Business development manager Juan van der Merwe says Maelgwyn’s laboratory has developed from an in-house facility to a successful commercial laboratory capable of providing feasibility studies for mining and engineering houses, as well as consultation for processing equipment suppliers and vendors.

He adds that the company has a nonbureaucratic culture, which allows it to remain flexible and provide rapid solutions to clients’ metallurgical processing problems.

Further, Maelgwyn laboratory manager Sonestie Janse van Rensburg says much of the testwork undertaken by the laboratory in recent times involved the development of extraction processes for difficult-to-treat orebodies. This service entails understanding liberation and association characteristics of particular minerals and pinpointing variables/anomalies in the mineralogy to which particular solutions accord.

“It’s important to understand that each orebody behaves differently and that the appropriate technologies are considered for successful test campaigns.”

Maelgwyn’s testwork capabilities and areas of expertise cover flotation and associated design, which includes its proprietary, trademarked Imhoflot pneumatic flotation technology.

Additionally, the company has expertise in and testwork capabilities in terms of gold processing and the associated design and processing issues, including gravity concentration, pre-oxidation, leaching technologies, cyanide destruction, as well as Maelgwyn’s proprietary Aachen oxidation technology.

Moreover, Maelgwyn offers expertise on cyanide and arsenic management, and general environmental compliance issues.

Meanwhile, Maelgwyn has finalised the contractual terms with regard to a partnership with mineral concentration specialist Gravity Concentrators Africa, which will see it conduct independent qualifying testwork for the preconcentrator specialist in the future.

“Developing collaborative partnerships creates networks of knowledge and expertise; we believe it adds greatly to our clients’ understanding of their orebodies, how it relates to process flow development and, ultimately, in converting expectation into reality,” concludes Van der Merwe.