CRC ORE
 Program:

Program 3: Extract (P3-010)

ORE

 
Lithium.

 PhD Topic:

Calcination effect on beneficiation of hard rock lithium ores

 Institution:

Curtin University - Western Australian School of Mines

 Research
 Supervisor:

Dr Laurence Dyer

 Expected
 Completion:

November 2022

 Meet Kashif Nazir:

ORE

Muhammad Kashif Nazir is a PhD student at Curtin University’s Western Australia School of Mines: Minerals, Energy and Chemical Engineering (WASM:MECE).

Kashif commenced his PhD candidature in November 2018 as a part of CRC ORE’s P3-010 project – Beneficiation of Hard Rock Lithium Ore. His research is focused on the “Effect of Calcination on the beneficiation of Hard Rock Lithium Ore”.

Kashif is a professional Metallurgical and Material Science Engineer with more than 18 years of industrial experience in down stream recycling of Aluminium. He holds a Masters Degree in Carbon Management and a research patent in Aluminium Recycling.

With very strong research, analytical, process, process reengineering and quality management skills, Kashif is looking forward to a challenging career in process research and development after the completion of his PhD.

 Focus area:

Calcination effect on beneficiation of hard rock lithium ores.

Conventional processing to upgrade Lithium Ores is hazardous and expensive. After comminution and separation, spodumene undergoes calcination at extreme temperatures of over 1,000°C to transform it and allow leaching. At this point, highly corrosive hydrochloric acid is required to leach the calcine, leading to expensive corrosion resistant materials being used.

CRC ORE project - Beneficiation of Hard Rock Lithium Ore, aims to upgrade spodumene ore with a specific focus on flotation. Kashif will be researching the calcination effect on the beneficiation. This will be studied in different forms such as the effects of calcination and roasting when the ore is crushed, screened, graded, floated to different size fragments. Results will be complied at different calcination and roasting temperatures to study the effect of calcination.

If processing plants are able to deliver higher grades of Lithium Ore this would increase potential throughput and decrease energy consumption. For sites producing concentrate, higher grades would increase product value.