Engineering has been completed for CFNP to support capital and operating estimates for our new flowsheet. The capital cost is comparable with standard technology, but the bigger news is a 30-50% savings in operating costs, excluding any allowance for carbon tax savings. The driver for commencing this project was to reduce carbon emissions, the CFNP flowsheet has a 300000tpa reduction in carbon emmissions for standard sized plant, this equates to over 100,000 cars off of the road (assuming 8L/100km and 15,000km driven per year http://www.environment.gov.au/settlements/transport/fuelguide/environment.html).

Following Brett Muller’s presentation at the Paydirt Australian Nickel Conference the following article by Nick Evans was published in MiningNews.net.

Simulus managing director Brett Muller told the Paydirt Australian Nickel Conference this morning his company has developed a technology that can reduce carbon emissions from laterite nickel production by up to 75% and reduce average production costs to around $3500 per tonne, a saving of around 30-50%.

And that’s before any potential gains from the introduction of any carbon tax, or carbon trading scheme, according to Muller.

Muller told MiningNews.net its carbon friendly nickel process (CFNP) can also reduce water consumption by up to 80%, making it far easier for local laterite companies to obtain environmental approvals.

The company uses a membrane to separate waste acid from nickel, aiming to recycle and reuse acid in processing, alongside an iron rejection and acid regeneration system. The process also separates magnesium from sulfur dioxide, returning it to the acid plant.

The process, according to Simulus, can reduce sulfur use by up to 80%, completely eliminate the need for additional limestone and magnesia, and reduced water requirements by water use by 75%.

On the other end of the process, Simulus claims its processing system can reduce the solid waste produced by almost 50%, reducing tailings facility engineering costs, and will drop carbon emissions by up 75% across the process.

And the company says the capital costs for its system are no greater than for existing onsite processing facilities.

Muller told MNN the company’s next step, over the next year, is to build a demonstration plant.

Simulus is seeking industry partners for that work, which will come with a likely capital cost of $1-3 million.

He said the company would be seeking to provide the technology, demonstration plant operation and a full engineering package in exchange for project equity, focusing initially on local start-up operations, if Simulus can strike a deal with a nickel miner entering production that is prepared to take a risk on new technology.