By Ricardo Capanema, Global Marketing & Business Development Director; Genevieve Castillo, Global Marketing Manager, Mineral Processing; Flavio Bechir, Global Marketing Manager, Metal Extraction Products; and Ryan Zheng, Global Marketing Manager, Alumina & Industrial Minerals
The world’s demand for metals keeps growing. Major drivers include the electrification megatrend and the adoption of electric vehicles. At the same time, mines are seeking to boost the yield and efficiency of their processes while facing complex sustainability challenges.
Syensqo is a science company, a leading global provider of advanced performance materials and chemical solutions. The company spun off from Solvay in December 2023 to sharpen its strategic focus in specialty materials and specialty chemicals, driven by a commitment to sustainability and innovation. Syensqo’s portfolio is aimed at addressing disruptive megatrends, such as resource efficiency, electrification, light weighting, connectivity, and quality of life.
Under the resource efficiency umbrella, Syensqo addresses the needs of mining operations with a wide range of innovative mining technologies, dedicated services and local support. Syensqo’s offering plays an instrumental role in delivering greater efficiency, growth and sustainability for the African mining industry, with its focus on mineral processing, solvent extraction, alumina processing and industrial minerals.
Dedicated focus on the African market
Syensqo has a well-established presence in the African market, enabling support to customers across the region with speed and efficiency. Providing technical service is a key pillar of Syensqo’s approach. To meet this need, Syensqo established a network of laboratories across Africa. For instance, the company has a new metallurgical laboratory in Kitwe, Zambia, which complements the capacity of the existing local lab in Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), to provide tailored solutions that meet the specific needs of local customers and the ores they process. Additionally, a warehouse in Walvis Bay, Namibia, ensures fast and secure product supply. Rather than taking a one-size-fits-all approach, Syensqo tailors formulations to support local customer needs, ore types and extraction methods, as evident in product lines developed to cater to the African market, such as the Acorga® OPT series.
Syensqo’s regional commitment is further strengthened through on-site training and regional seminars, where best practices, successes and challenges are shared to move the industry forward.
Successful crud mitigation
One of the significant challenges faced by African mines related to solvent extraction is crud formation. Mines are seeking to minimize crud and build-up of associated particles, which can limit throughput and require unscheduled plant downtime for removal. In the field, Syensqo’s CR60LT reagent interferes with crud formation and increases leach throughput by up to 7% without impacting downstream processes. Moreover, the low-dosage additive enhances safety versus common crud removal processes.
The benefits were demonstrated in a commercial trial at a copper mine in the DRC, which was confronted with high organic losses, decreased pregnant leach solution (PLS) flows and frequent downtimes. With Acorga® CR60LT, the plant saw 60% to 70% less crud formation, a drop in extractant consumption by 0.5 to 1 kg per ton of copper produced, and the elimination of unscheduled shutdowns for crud removal.
Similar results were achieved at the La Miniere De Kasombo (MIKAS) plant in the DRC, where the additive enabled uninterrupted operations for over a year and has already saved more than 60 metric tons of otherwise deferred copper production.
Faster lithium recovery
Africa is also home to a number of lithium mines, with operations in countries such as Zimbabwe, Namibia, Mali, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana and Nigeria. Solvent extraction is gaining momentum as a newer method for the production of lithium, which is a crucial market segment for electric vehicle batteries. However, most lithium is still recovered over periods of up to 18 months from salt flats where it is evaporated from large ponds. The process leads to high lithium losses and has a significant impact on land use and water consumption.
In response, Syensqo developed a series of Cyanex® reagents designed to support a more efficient and less resource-intensive alternative to the evaporation process via solvent extraction. Cyanex® 936P is the principal reagent that powers the lithium solvent extraction process. With support from Cyanex® 936P, solvent extraction enables the production of high-purity lithium salts that can be recovered at a rate of over 85% within just hours, and in a water-saving process independent from weather conditions. What’s more, solvent extraction requires a fraction of the land compared to the traditional evaporation and precipitation route. Syensqo is working with customers globally to accelerate the adoption of lithium solvent extraction.
Catering to the alumina and industrial minerals markets
In North Africa, Syensqo collaborates closely with major phosphate producers to introduce its innovative reagents for heavy metal removal, as well as its flotation and scale inhibition solutions.
One of the challenges faced by alumina refineries is the formation of sodalite scale during the Bayer process, which can severely impact energy efficiency and require frequent equipment cleanings. Syensqo works with African refineries to address this issue with its MAX HT® scale inhibitor, a reagent that prevents the formation of sodalite scale. This in turn leads to higher efficiency in heat exchangers, reduces water usage and limits worker exposure to hazardous cleaning chemicals.
Safety issues are also a concern in the industrial minerals market and, in particular, the phosphate sector, where heavy metal contamination in phosphate-based fertilizers and animal feed poses a substantial risk to end consumers via the food supply and to the environment via runoff. Used by North African phosphate producers, Syensqo’s ACCO-PHOS® reagents offer a robust solution, efficiently removing heavy metals such as cadmium and arsenic from phosphoric acids by as much as 90% or greater, helping make fertilizers and animal feeds safer while reducing environmental impact.
Other key Syensqo reagents for the alumina and industrial minerals markets include Cyfloc® red mud flocculants; Cybreak® defoamers; Cyquest® processing aids; Aero® and Aeromine® collectors for the concentration of mineral ores; and Phosflow® scale inhibitors to improve the efficiency of phosphoric acid production.
Breakthrough flotation technology
On the flotation side, Syensqo’s proven Aero®, Aeromine® and Aerophine® collectors as well as Aerofroth® and Oreprep® frothers help operators optimize their flotation processes and increase concentrate grades for various base and precious metals, including copper, molybdenum, gold, lead, zinc and lithium.
However, one area where innovation largely stagnated for more than 60 years is frother technology. Mines have typically settled for frothers that lack the optimal strength or weakness necessary to perform at their best in both the rougher and cleaner stages, leading to over frothing, loss of value metals and plant downtime. To address this need, Syensqo introduced Transfoamer™, the first ‘switchable’ frothers in the market, designed specifically to improve copper coarse particle recovery.
The breakthrough technology automatically adapts to pH changes in coarse particle flotation circuits, starting with robust frothing in the rougher circuit and transitioning to weaker frothing in the cleaner circuit – all in a single-product solution that overcomes the limitations of traditional frother blends.
TransfoamerTM technology is gaining traction in the market, with several customers already incorporating the frothers into their operations. Additionally, Syensqo’s mining experts are studying the technology, with a goal of extending its applicability to other metals, such as polymetallics, nickel, and potentially precious metals.
Digital solutions at the service of mining customers
Today, mines sit on a wealth of untapped data, which, if unlocked, can generate meaningful insights and actionable operational improvements. For this reason, Syensqo developed its Smart Mining Chemistry solutions, such as SolvExtract®, SmartFloatTM and the Syensqo Cube. These platforms are paired with Syensqo’s reagents to help mines optimize process parameters and formulations in real-time, based on customers’ operational data and AI algorithms.
Syensqo has since expanded its digital capabilities by upgrading its MinchemTM solvent extraction modeling software, which reduces the time required to develop a solvent extraction circuit design from days or hours to minutes.
Recently, these new MinchemTM modeling capabilities, paired with Cyanex® reagents, helped an African cobalt producer achieve higher separation and purity specifications by narrowing process conditions such as reagent concentration, staging configuration and pH profile, enabling the customer to improve productivity.
Reducing HSE issues in mineral processing
With regard to its impact on health, safety and the environment (HSE), the mining industry needs more sustainable chemistries to reduce the use of hazardous chemicals. Key to sustainability is also the selectivity of reagents, as it provides greater efficiency in separating metals from ore bodies at lower reagent dosages – that is, improved selectivity enables mines to do more with less. This is especially important since the vast majority of mining reagents are derived from non-renewable fossil-based feedstock.
Addressing HSE concerns without sacrificing performance is a key principle in Syensqo’s mining product development. Customers are looking to eliminate a number of hazardous chemicals from their operations. Accordingly, Syensqo developed the Aero® NR reagent series to enable up to 100% replacement of toxic sodium hydrogen sulfide (NaHS) in copper-molybdenum mines, while the Aero® SR series was developed as a safer alternative to cyanide and dichromate in copper-lead-zinc separation by reducing chemical handling and exposure. Additionally, xanthate alternatives remain popular both for performance and sustainability reasons. Here, Syensqo’s Aero® XR series mitigates HSE risks associated with combustibility, self-ignition or toxic gas release during storage, shipment and use.
Final Thoughts
Africa’s mining market is a dynamic environment with unique needs but also many of the same challenges that impact the mining industry as a whole. As the market grows in Africa, Syensqo looks forward to maintaining an active presence in the region, reinforcing its research and technical capabilities to serve the needs of its customers.
Acco-Phos®, Acorga®, Aero®, Aerofroth®, Aeromine®, Aerophine®, Cyanex®, Cybreak®, Cyfloc®, Cyquest®, Max HT®, Oreprep®, Phosflow® and SolvExtract® are registered trademarks of Syensqo.
Maxyield™, SmartFloat™, MinchemTM and Transfoamer™ are trademarks of Syensqo.
