Bulk Handling Technologies explain how its work 18 months ago on the Balama Graphite Project has provided the company with further work to add to its impressive portfolio.
A lot can change in a day, let alone 18 months. Bulk Handling Technologies (BHT) founder and engineering manager Paul Ingleson told ABHR that industry needs are evolving – especially in the critical minerals sector.
According to Geoscience Australia, the country is home to 31 critical minerals that are vital for manufacturing advanced technologies, from the iPhone to the semi-conductor.
Ingleson said that in the past 18 months, BHT has been involved with several rare earth and critical minerals projects, each with its own unique requirements.
“For some minerals, the process is straightforward: extract the material, sort it by size, and send it to market,” he said.
“But, by contrast, with many rare earths and critical minerals, they demand intensive handling and complex downstream processing before their valuable elements can be recovered. At each stage of processing there can be unique and often challenging materials to be handled.”
When ABHR spoke with Ingleson for the May 2024 edition, the Perth-based company referenced the custom designed heavy-duty twin-screw feeders supplied to the Balama Graphite Project. The Cabo Delgado based project, considered ‘globally significant’, is one of the world’s largest and highest-grade flake graphite operations.
“These heavy-duty twin screw feeders handling graphite flake filter cake were supplied and commissioned in late 2017 and have been operating reliably for nearly 8 years. The Balama project was a great opportunity to demonstrate our materials handling expertise for poor flowing and difficult to handle products,” Ingleson said.
“At the time, there were no installations that we were aware of using this equipment to handle this same bulk material at these feed rates.
Since then, BHT has been involved in many projects requiring unique solutions to handle difficult materials.
“We are not a cookie cutter company that develops one product and then tries to apply this product each and every time,” Ingleson said.
“We are a solution-oriented business, rather than a product-oriented one. Our customers know that we have a range of products and a very experienced design team who will work with their engineers to develop a cost effective and reliable solution.”
Following the Balama project, BHT has gone on to work with many companies in the critical minerals space, including Lynas Rare Earths and Iluka’s Rare Earth Refinery in Eneabba.
“We have also completed a number of projects for the Lithium sector,” Ingleson said.
As part of a recent project, BHT designed a highly customised solution to receive high temperature beta-spodumene.
“Beta-spodumene is a high-temperature, crystalline from of the mineral spodumene which is suitable for lithium extraction,” explains Ingleson. “The system recently supplied by BHT included storage, extraction and precise mass-controlled feeding of beta-spodumene into the process. Careful design was required to ensure reliable performance as this product is not only hot, but it is extremely abrasive and is well known for being poor flowing and difficult to handle.”
Moving forward, Ingleson believes there will be a major focus on reliability and maintainability when working on critical minerals projects.
“In my experience when working on projects involving complicated processing, I’ve found that you can have lots of problems due to the many and varied intermediate products that must be handled,” he said.
“All you need is one of those areas to be unreliable, and it affects the whole production. This is why reliability and maintainability are such important criteria for BHT.”
The company aims to continue growing in this sector and plans to be recognised as a leading supplier of engineered bulk materials handling equipment and systems.
“Our plan is to continue doing what we’re doing and to continue servicing the evolving critical minerals market, expanding our experience in this important sector,” Ingleson said.
“We will continue to pick the right projects carefully, which suit both the way we work and the requirements of our customers. Our speciality is engineered materials handling equipment, and we think the need for our products and services will continue to grow in the coming years.”