South Africa’s ambition to expand mineral beneficiation, accelerate technology transfer and deepen collaborative innovation aligns closely with this year’s Investing in African Mining Indaba theme of Stronger together: Progress through partnerships. These priorities underscore national mineral research organisation Mintek’s expanding role in enabling research-driven industrial development, says Mintek mineral processing executive manager Dr Lawrence Bbosa.

Mintek’s operational model is anchored in structured collaboration with government, research institutions and industry, with Bbosa adding that through the Department of Mineral and Petroleum Resources (DMPR); the Department of Science, Technology and Innovation; the National Treasury; and national science bodies, the organisation continues to secure coordinated support for research programmes that advance local value addition.

A recent example is Mintek’s proposed coal-waste revalorisation initiative, which integrates commodity recovery, market development and environmental mitigation in line with South Africa’s critical minerals strategy.

With industry partnerships remaining central to translating research into commercial readiness, Mintek is piloting solutions across Africa’s suite of critical minerals, including manganese, lithium and cobalt, and has strengthened cooperation with equipment suppliers to house multiple modern process units for impartial performance testing.

“We want to take the science and translate it into impact so that innovation drives new industries, creates jobs and builds beneficiation capacity,” adds Bbosa.

Strengthening Beneficiation Capacity, Skills Development

South Africa’s newly published critical minerals strategy of the DMPR identifies platinum-group metals (PGMs), manganese, iron-ore, coal and chrome as high-criticality minerals, with rare earths also being prioritised.

Mintek’s pilot-scale facilities, covering processing, extraction, refining and downstream application development, provide an integrated platform for progressing these mineral systems from concept to pre-commercial demonstration, highlights Bbosa.

This capability, he adds, supports the State’s ambition for South Africa to become a continental hub for critical minerals processing.

“Our role is to be an enabler by leveraging our pilot infrastructure to produce bankable proof-of-concept technologies that can be readily implemented by industry.”

Several research and pilot projects are targeting the challenge of treating increasingly complex orebodies, while multidisciplinary PGM studies are applying mineralogy, chemistry and processing science to develop predictive methodologies for difficult ores, he explains.

In iron-ore, Mintek is piloting novel gravity and magnetic separation flow sheets to viably upgrade C- and D-grade material for blending with higher-grade ores. Additionally, pilot-scale rare earth processing work includes methods to manage radiation-associated impurities while achieving international-standard purity.

Digital process modelling partnerships are also improving circuit predictability and efficiency, adds Bbosa.

The organisation’s beneficiation work also extends into reprocessing tailings and waste material to extract vanadium, aluminium and other commodities, where emerging technologies are being tested to unlock new value streams and support the circular economy.

Mintek collaborates across all domains with a broad network of universities, research bodies and commercial partners.

Meanwhile, skills development is integral to sustaining South Africa’s competitiveness in mineral science. The organisation is hosting postgraduate researchers, interns and in-training engineers, exposing them to advanced technology platforms across the full value chain, from extraction and processing to environmental and socioeconomic disciplines, notes Bbosa.