Digital transformation is emerging as a driver of sweeping change in the world. Digitalization will be a force that changes the nature of companies and their interaction with employees, communities, government, and the environment at every step of the value chain, within mining and metal industries. However, this requires cross-disciplinary coordination, such as combination of expertise in mining, metallurgy, and digitalization.
This project aims to develop key big data technologies for mineral processing industries both in China and Norway, to meet the challenges for mining and metal production industries facing the arrival of the digitalisation era. BigDataMine will primarily contribute to the UN sustainability Goal 12 "Responsible consumption and production" via cleaner and less energy consuming processes, and to Goal 8 "Decent work and economic growth" by replacing dangerous manual tasks with control room jobs.
The goals of the BigDataMine project are:
- To identify, implement and qualify robust sensing technologies for ferroalloys and gold ore processing.
- To develop key big data framework (innovative workflows and integration) for mining, mineral processing and metallurgy.
- To develop advanced analytics for yield/recovery maximization in ferroalloys and gold ore processing.
- To develop artificial intelligence algorithms for condition monitoring of ferroalloys and gold ore processing equipment allowing for predictive maintenance.
SINTEF is the project owner and carries out the main research activities with industrial application focus. The industries (Elkem and Eramet) provide industrial supports for use case studies which could be implemented in the plants.
The project consortium has the following six participants from Norway and China. Norway: SINTEF AS (SINTEF Industry and SINTEF Digital), Elkem ASA and Eramet Norway. China: Beijing General Research Institute of Mining & Metallurgy Technology Group, Shandong Gold Mining Co. Ltd. Sanshandao Gold Mine, Northeastern University