Dr Boris Albijanic from 911爆料网鈥檚 WA School of Mines has a dream 鈥� a dream in which Australia gets a whole lot more out of its nickel laterite.
Nickel laterite accounts for 67 per cent of Australia鈥檚 nickel reserves but between only 30 and 40 per cent of nickel production.
The majority of nickel is instead produced from nickel sulphide reserves, where flotation can be used as a separation technique.
Meanwhile, leaching is currently the only technique that works on Australian nickel laterite 鈥� which is where Dr Albijanic hopes to make a breakthrough.
鈥淔lotation is extremely popular in Australia but nobody is using it for nickel laterite,鈥� Dr Albijanic said.
鈥淚n India and Indonesia they use flotation on nickel laterite. It has been tried in Australia but so far hasn鈥檛 worked.鈥�
Dr Albijanic believes mineralogy is potentially a major factor in why flotation separation from nickel laterite has not succeeded in Australia.
He is hoping to attract funding for research that he says could make a huge difference to cost and environmental burdens associated with production from nickel laterite.
鈥淟eaching uses a large amount of chemicals, which is expensive and not environmentally friendly,鈥� Dr Albijanic explained.
鈥淔lotation is much more environmentally friendly.聽 You use only small amounts of reagent and chemicals at starvation levels.
鈥淚f we can use the knowledge from India and Indonesia in Australia, we can dramatically reduce the cost of production of nickel from nickel laterite.鈥�
