Results
Canadian Mining Innovation Council has been selected as the winner of the Crush It! Challenge!
CMIC's cleantech solution, CanMicro, combines microwave-assisted comminution and multi-sensor ore sorting technology designed to selectively break particles and sort waste from desired minerals, reducing crushing and grinding requirements. CanMicro exceeded Challenge guidelines, reaching over 35 percent energy savings across several commodities.
This announcement follows a four-year intensive program that was launched in 2018 with the goal of finding innovative solutions for cleaner, more efficient rock processing in the mining sector. Through a national call and expert selection process, six finalists were chosen from nearly 65 applicants, receiving $860,000 to advance their technologies. The grand prize winner of the Crush it! Challenge was selected through a competitive and rigorous process designed and delivered by Natural Resources Canada.
Transcript
Robert Stephens (Conjugate Anvil Hammer Mill):
Mining innovation is absolutely critical to society. Many people forget where the minerals that they use in their daily life actually come from. If it can’t be grown, it has to be mined. So therefore, as the deposits that we are mining get deeper and they get more complex, we absolutely need innovation to actually be able to produce the minerals and metals and materials that modern society relies on. The need for innovation — typically, we have got larger, we’ve made our trucks larger, we’ve made our sag mills larger, we’ve made our flotation cells larger. But now we’re getting to a point where larger doesn’t cut it anymore. We need to be innovative, and we actually need to change the technology that we’re using, not just make them bigger and bigger. So therefore, the innovation activities that we have going on through the Canada Mining Innovation Council and supported by programs like Crush it! and the Clean Growth program actually give us the opportunity to test these new innovations and actually develop them to the point that mining companies are ready to adopt them and put them into practice.
Robert McIvor (Optimization of High Pressure Grinding Rolls):
In our project, we’re going to extend the application of high-pressure grinding into fine grinding, that is, to replace ball mills. Ball mills are still the workhorse of the industry when it comes to producing the final fine product ahead of separation processes like flotation, magnetic separation, leaching and the like. And over half the total amount of energy for comminution is still used by these ball mills. We believe we can replace those ball mills with about half the energy by extending the application of high-pressure grinding.
Tracy Holmes (Microwave Treatment and Materials Handling):
I think since mining uses so much of the worlds’ energy, we have a real responsibility to try to do it as efficiently as you can to make things better. And we have so much room for improvement, I think we should really go after it.
Cliff Edwards (Transcritical CO2 Pulverization):
Our innovation is to rethink the crushing and grinding process from first principles. So we came up with a process where you permeate rock with super critical CO2 , and then you transcritically cycle the CO2 from the super-critical to sub-critical state and explosively expand the rock from within, thus shattering it.
Rayhana-Khadija Msadek (Intellicrush):
The current grinding technologies already allow significant gains in grinding. A whole series of technologies have been demonstrated over the past few years, and obviously what we proposed with this tool is to be able to integrate those technologies into the grinding circuits. This will really let us look for all the gains that have been proposed with the different technologies. Several of them propose gains of 20%, 30% and 50% in terms of energy consumption. So by really looking for the gains offered by these new technologies, we’ll be able to design circuits that are clearly more efficient for the industry.
Erin Bobicki (University of Toronto):
The CanMicro process reduces comminution energy in three main ways. What we’ve done is to combine micro-assisted comminution and sorting. The first two mechanisms actually, by which energy is reduced, is through micro-assisted fracture. We reduce the ore competence as well as increase the mineral liberation side. The third mechanism is through ore sorting, so we reduce the amount of ore that has to be ground. These three combinations can lead to up to 70% reduction in mineral comminution.
Finalists
| Lead Applicant | Organization | Proposal Title |
|---|---|---|
| Erin Bobicki | University of Toronto | Demonstration of Combined Microwave-Assisted Comminution and Sorting for Energy Reduction in Mineral Processing |
| Cliff Edwards | Envisioning Labs | Transcritical CO2 Pulverization |
| Rayhana-Khadija Msadek | COREM | IntelliCrush: Advanced artificial intelligence tools to design eco-efficient comminution circuits |
| Gillian Holcroft | CMIC (Canada Mining Innovation Council) | CAHM - A Disruptive Grinding Technology that will Significantly Reduce Energy Consumption in Comminution |
| Tracy Holmes | Jenike & Johanson | Targeted Microwave Heating Rocks! A Step-Change Energy Reduction in Comminution |
| Claude Gagnon | COREM | Development and Demonstration of HPGR Grinding and Novel Classification to Mineral Separation Circuit Feed Sizing in Replacement of Ball Milling |
Semi-Finalists
| Lead Applicant | Organization | Proposal Title |
|---|---|---|
| Erin Bobicki | University of Toronto | Demonstration of Combined Microwave-Assisted Comminution and Sorting for Energy Reduction in Mineral Processing |
| Hassine Bouafif | CTRI (Industrial Waste Technology Centre) | New Approach to Continuous Comminution via High Pulse Power (HPP) |
| Georgi Doundarov | Magemi Mining | High Optical Power Laser for Mining to Replace Drill and Blast and Crushing |
| Cliff Edwards | Envisioning Labs | Transcritical CO2 Pulverization |
| Rayhana-Khadija Msadek | COREM | IntelliCrush: Advanced artificial intelligence tools to design eco-efficient comminution circuits |
| Gillian Holcroft | CMIC (Canada Mining Innovation Council) | CAHM - A Disruptive Grinding Technology that will Significantly Reduce Energy Consumption in Comminution |
| Tracy Holmes | Jenike & Johanson | Targeted Microwave Heating Rocks! A Step-Change Energy Reduction in Comminution |
| Saeed Karimifard | Motion Metrics | AI-Driven Dilution Control (Mine to Mill Optimization via Ore Sensing and 3D Imaging) |
| Claude Gagnon | COREM | Development and Demonstration of HPGR Grinding and Novel Classification to Mineral Separation Circuit Feed Sizing in Replacement of Ball Milling |
| Todd Parker | Blue Spark Energy | Crush Pulse |
| Mark Sherry | iRing | Eliminating the Crusher and Grinding Requirements Using the Blast to Create the Required Fragmentation |
| J. Lyall Workman | Barr Engineering | Blasting Down Crushing and Grinding Energy Consumption |
Challenge details
Who can apply?
- For-profit and not-for-profit organizations such as companies, industry associations and research centres
- Indigenous organizations and groups
- Canadian post-secondary institutions
- Independent small-scale innovators and individuals
Prizes
- $10,000 for each small-scale innovator selected as one of the up to twelve (12) Challenge semi-finalists to help them pitch their ideas to the Challenge Jury
- Up to $800,000 each for up to 6 finalists to build and test their cleantech solutions.
- $5 million grant to the innovator who can demonstrate the best energy breakthrough in crushing and grinding rocks
Key dates
- January 15, 2019: deadline to submit applications
- March 2019: pitch proposal at #DisruptMining event
- May 2019: top 6 announced
- May 31, 2021: final submission deadline for Challenge finalists
- Summer 2021: final grand prize winner announced