The EMINENT project gathered in Trondheim to catch up on the different activities, shared ideas and discuss challenges and possibilities along the value chain of seabed minerals.

Sample material at different stages

The project participants were given a tour of the Department of Geosciences and Petroleum's laboratories at NTNU.

The project group got to see part of the sample material from the EMINENT project. The samples shown represented different stages of the characterization and mineral processing experiments being carried out at NTNU.

- It was great to be able to see the material that the project is working on as it appears through the different stages of the recovery and processing. (Jon Hellevang, GCE Ocean Technology

A long list of equipment

In the new Berglaboratoriet, we got to see the mineral processing laboratory and the available equipment for running mineral processing experiments using gravity and magnetic methods as well as flotation. The laboratory cover (bench scale) up to pilot scale equipment. We also saw that the laboratory has equipment for crushing, grinding and sieving. In the flotation laboratory, we were given a demonstration of bench-scale flotation and through this, a simple insight into the principles of flotation.

National research infrastructure

Further, we were introduced to the electron microscopy (EM) laboratory at the department. The main equipment of interest here was the SEM-based automated mineralogy instrument and the Electron Probe Microanalyses instrument. Both instruments are part of the Norwegian Laboratory for Mineral and Materials Characterization (MiMaC), which is a national research infrastructure funded by the Research Council of Norway. The MiMaC lab is a cooperation between NTNU, NGU and SINTEF.

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