RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT
Since 2017 our team has built several large test and laboratory mills and conducted an extensive research programme to verify the technology. The highlight of 2022 is the establishment of a pilot plant at an operating mine in Sweden. This pilot will run for the duration of the Swedish summer, with the possibility of extending it over the winter and into 2023. The company aims to build its first saleable mill in 2023.
Pilot test programme
The success of the laboratory test programme set the team up for bigger things. We have designed and built a 25 tph pilot mill that incorporates and allows us to test, many of the design features that will be part of the first production mills. The mill has been installed at an operating mineral processing facility in Sweden and the pilot programme will run over the summers of 2022 and 2023. Stay tuned for updates on this programme.
Laboratory research programme
Our laboratory research and test programme has focused on verifying the performance that was predicted based on the fundamentals of particle fracture. To do this the team had to design, manage build and commission several laboratory-scale ARBS mills. Weighing between 1t and 10t these are far larger than one would normally expect for a laboratory mill. The largest has a capacity of up to 10tph. The mills are packed with sensors and have generated a wealth of important data. The good news is that the predicted extremely low energy consumption has been fully verified, and all indications are that this low energy consumption can be achieved at a scale suitable for mining and mineral processing.
