News & Events

The ninth and final Sponsor's Review Meeting of the ARC Research Hub for Australian Copper-Uranium was successfully held Tuesday 12th May. This was an all-day video conferencing event with 24 participants. To summarise the Hub higher degree by research students and postdoctoral researchers presented an overview of their findings to our industry partners.

The Cu-U Hub Manager attended the International Mining and Resources Conference in Melbourne. The University had a booth and discussed Hub research outputs and potential future collaborations with hundreds of delegates.

The Centre for Radiation Research, Education and Innovation (established from Hub outputs and capabilities) represented the University of Adelaide at the National Space Conference in Adelaide and won the award for Most Inspiring Research Institute at the conference.

The Adelaide based Cu-U Hub researchers went on a comprehensive tour of the mineral processing and analysis laboratories of the Wingfield Bureau Veritas site this week.

Jarrah Mik has won 3rd prize and received the Gerald Laurence Memorial award at the 2018 Annual Student Paper Night where he gave a talk on Radiation Sensitive Optical Fibre Devices. The night is held by the SA/NT Australasian College of Physical Scientists and Engineers in Medicine and supported by the Australasian Radiation Protection Society.

Ms Jaye Muir and Dr Robert Acres organised a comprehensive tour of the Australian Synchrotron for Cu-U Hub researchers. Researchers saw and heard about the Synchrotron capabilities including the Imaging and Medical beamline, the X-ray fluorescence microscopy (XFM) beamline, the Micro and Macro-molecular Crystallography (MX) beamlines and the SAXS/WAXS beamlines.

Cu-U Hub researchers attended the 5th Asian & Oceanic IRPA Regional Congress on Radiation Protection in Melbourne. Adjunct Associate Professor Tony Hooker is part of the Scientific Program and Organising committees, Mr Mick Stuckings presented on Gamma Spectrometry Analysis for Varied Mineralogy, Dr Chris Kalnins presented his research on Nanoscale Migration of Radiogenic Lead and Dr Ruth Shaw presented research on Highly sensitive novel silica-based materials for radiation dosimetry.

More extensive minerals processing made possible by partnership with University of Queensland.

Mining industry provides new analysis support for ARC Research Hub.

Hub participants were lucky enough to get a tour of BHP Billiton’s Processing Operations at Olympic Dam last week. In addition to the tour the group stayed in Woomera and presented recent work to colleagues. It was a great opportunity to discuss work, brainstorm ideas and swap stories.

An exciting week in Adelaide with the Australian Copper-Uranium Transformation Research Hub represented at the Australian Radiation Protection Society 2016 Conference.

Research Hub to add billions to Australian's Copper Industry.

The South Australian Department of State Development is formulating a comprehensive copper strategy to identify and address the challenges faced by the industry to reach a shared objective that supports new jobs and investment.

South Australia hosts about 68 per cent of Australia’s known copper resource and yet exports around 30 per cent. The strategy aims to lift Australia to third place in the world ranking of copper producers by uniting government and its agencies at all levels, explorers, producers, the wider resources industry, Aboriginal communities, and the South Australian community towards a common goal.

South Australia’s unique and prospective geology, combined with a highly-skilled workforce, and academic institutions on the forefront of research and development, provide the basis for significant future growth.

For more information go to Developing South Australia’s Copper Strategy.

Mining and Petroleum Services Centre of Excellence

In June 2013, in the 2013-14 Budget, in keeping with the South Australian Government's vision to establish South Australia as a minerals and energy services centre for Australia, the Premier announced the creation of a Mining and Petroleum Services Centre of Excellence (CoE), innovation fund.

Aligned with South Australia’s Economic Priority 1, the CoE is a significant commitment by the South Australian Government to support the resources and energy sector and unlock South Australia’s mineral and energy potential.

The CoE has been established to bring together resource companies, research institutions and services businesses to foster and coordinate innovation and applied research initiatives, to benefit the resources sector and service providers.

Its purpose is to support new and innovative ways to drive resources sector growth, promoting local solutions which unlock South Australia’s mineral and energy wealth.

ARC Research Hub for Australian Copper-Uranium, June 2015.

The Australian Research Council has awarded more than $2.5 million over five years to the University of Adelaide to establish the ARC Research Hub for Australian Copper-Uranium (The Hub). BHP Billiton is the primary industry partner, contributing $2.5 million in cash as well as in-kind.

Copper is one of Australia's top commodity exports, worth about $6 billion a year. South Australia is a significant copper producer, hosting one of the world's biggest mineral deposits at Olympic Dam. The Hub aims to develop new cost-effective strategies to detect and remove non-target metals from copper-uranium ore in Australia’s iron oxide copper gold deposits such as Olympic Dam and Prominent Hill.

The ARC Research Hub for Australian Copper-Uranium, led by Professor Stephen Grano, will develop, test and commercialise new safe and cost-effective methods to separate non-target metals from copper concentrates. To do this effectively researchers must first understand the mineral systems, understand where in the systems the non-target metals sit, and then find ways to extract copper sustainably and economically.

It will help to ensure Australia is a world leader in copper production and associated technology.

As part of their Industrial Transformation Program, the ARC supports collaborative research between the higher education sector and industry aimed at helping Australia's best researchers tackle the issues faced by modern industrial economies and train our future workforce.

Research partners in the Hub include the University of Adelaide, Defence Science and Technology Organisation, Flinders University, Monash University, the University of Queensland, and University College London (Australia).