Rio Tinto Summer Internships 2013

So my time here is almost over and I will leave Cape Town tomorrow. I really can’t quite believe it. I have been here for 9 weeks now and it really feels like yesterday that I arrived (pardon the cliché)!

I will keep this blog short as I don’t want to bore people anymore, but as I am sure you can tell I have had a fantastic time in this amazing country that is full of such diversity everywhere you look. I would recommend a visit to this city to anyone, there is so much to do in the city as well as in the surrounding areas.

I have spent a lot of time in the city but also went for a 3 day safari near to Port Elizabeth at Shamwari Game Reserve, saw whales and great white sharks in Hermanus and went on a UCT geology field trip as well as another weekend trip to the West Coast.

The 50 page project is now finished and my research project at UCT is over! I have learnt a huge amount and found it very interesting. The work will now be continued by a couple of fourth year Chemical Engineering students as part of their Masters project for this year and there is also significant scope for much more work in this area of research. I would be very interested to know some of the results of further studies so I hope to keep in touch with the department in the future.

In addition to thanking everyone at Rio Tinto and Imperial College who made this internship possible, I would also like to thank all those at the Chemical Engineering Department at UCT for making me feel so welcome. Before Zoe and Alice left, a couple of weeks ago, we all went out for lunch at Rhodes Memorial above the campus, which was very enjoyable. (The photo below shows everyone who I have been working with in the Minerals to Metals Research Group).

I am sure none of them will get the chance to read this, but they have been incredibly accommodating and made the work enjoyable as well as ensuring that I have had an amazing experience, so thank you!

Anyway, my brief exposure to the world of blogging is over for now. I hope you have all enjoyed them – I have had 3690 views in total, which I am very surprised about!

Thank you for reading, cheers for the last time…

Harry

Read Time to say goodbye to Cape Town in full

It has been a long time since I talked extensively about the real reason I am in Cape Town. I have been at the University of Cape Town for 8 weeks now, with just one more week to go! It will be incredibly sad to leave as I have had an amazing time in this city and met lots of interesting and generous people at the university.

As I said at the start of my blogs, I am doing a research project looking at the effect of froth flotation on coal. This has been focused on two coal samples from coalfields in the North East of the country in areas called Waterberg and Witbank.

At the start of the project, a typical day was spent in the lab collecting data from froth flotation experiments or preparing samples for other analytical methods. Several chemical reagents were used during flotation and the dosages of these were varied to determine which was the most effective and how their individual chemistry interacted with each of the coal types. After each flotation, the liquid concentrate that is collected was dried and weighed, before being sent off for analysis to determine how much sulfur has been removed (the main aim of the project).

Over 120 samples were sent off to the Analytical Lab in the Chemical Engineering Department, as the analysis must be done using a particular machine that is only available in one of the labs. This took over three weeks to be completed (understandable for so many samples), but the results will now form a major part of the final project write-up, which has now reached over 40 pages in length!

As well as flotation experiments, the coal samples have been made into blocks that are observed under a reflected light microscope to determine the composition of each in terms of their sulfides (the acid-generating minerals causing the initial problem of acid rock drainage), the relative proportions of bright and dull coal (usefully, bright coal is less bright) and the amount of ash.

This type of work could potentially be very useful to the department’s research and to the mining industry as a whole, as a simple evaluation of the coal mineralogy could be linked to the success of flotation to remove sulfides. Therefore, this could save a significant amount of time and money for the industry, as flotation would only need to be implemented on the coal waste if a mineralogical study showed that it would be worthwhile.

This makes the work incredibly engaging as it contributes to a branch of science that is innovative and growing and is likely to help the mining industry in the future. At present, only 5-10% of South Africa’s mining industry (and 20% in the world) uses froth flotation to remove sulfides prior to waste disposal, but research in this field at UCT hopes to one day improve these figures.

Fingers crossed that all made sense! One more week to go of finishing the written report, a bit more microscope work and a some final analyses in the lab, before leaving this amazing country and being back in the UK (it better not be grey and raining!)

I hope that you enjoyed this instalment, and that is was a little different from my tourist blog of Cape Town thus far.

Cheers,

Harry

Read Working 9-5, what a way to make a living… in full

So, a lot more time has passed than normal as I get more and more busy – both with work and with having fun!

Last time I spoke to you, I promised some kind of cultural enlightenment/interesting aspect of life from this part of the Southern hemisphere, something that is different to me talking about floating coal or being a generic tourist in Cape Town, so here goes…

1. A minibus called a Maxi Taxi (says it all in the name really) is crammed with people to well beyond capacity until there are at least 5 people sharing 3 seats and then a man leans out the window and whistles, shouts, yells and calls out to try and attract yet more people into the vehicle. Definitely wouldn’t pass English health and safety standards…but at around 50p a journey it is hard to say no.

2. 

   South African idioms for dummies:
   • Braii = barbeque
   • Howzit = how are you?
   • Cheers = bye (confusing…)
   • Just now = at some point in the future, yet to be determined
   • Yar/yip = yes
3. On a slightly more serious note, there is a huge divide in wealth throughout the city and country. There are areas with great wealth and then there are shantytowns with corrugated iron roofs, limited electricity and poor sanitation. Beggars are everywhere you go and are clearly just a part of day-to-day life here. At each set of traffic lights (AKA robots) there is someone trying to sell you bin bags, newspapers, fruit and of course the Big Issue, but this is just a tiny part of the significant poverty that seems so peculiar in what must be a very affluent city in general terms. Whilst going on a tour to a township last weekend, it was clear how happy these people are despite their hardship. They are incredibly house proud and their houses are immaculate and they smile all the time, something which I think much of the Western world could take note of when we all moan (me included) about daily struggles that are just a drop in the ocean compared to having to share a toilet with 20 other people for example…

There you go! I have tried to portray a glimpse of some interesting aspects of life I have noticed since being here and I am sure more will pop up as I go along.

The research at UCT is still going well and the project is progressing well with still 4 weeks to go! Recently, we all attended a poster presentation at a Minerals Processing conference in the city to gain further exposure to this area of research.

Every spare opportunity is spent trying to explore as much as possible and this has included a long weekend (thanks to National Women’s Day) away to a place called Langebaan on the West Coast with my family. It included some fishing on the lagoon, unfortunately catching nothing, and cruising around on the motor boat (it’s a hard life here…).

Then this weekend, I have spent time catching up with my girlfriend, Maddy, who has come to visit me and volunteer at a children’s hospital! We have had an awesome time being tourists on a bus tour around the Atlantic coast seeing some breathtaking beaches, seals jumping out of the water for fish and sampling some tasty local seafood (such as fish called Kingklip!).

Last Sunday, we all went to Robben Island on a tour to see where Nelson Mandela was incarcerated for 18 years, which was both interesting and heart wrenching, but the views back towards the city were amazing (see photo).

So I have blabbered on once again, but I hope that the slight change in topic has made for some interesting reading.

Catch up again soon where I can chat about some planned activities such as Great White Shark cage diving and a 3-day safari near Port Elizabeth.

Still envious of my time here?! Then keep in touch to hear all about it with hopefully some good photos!

Cheers,

Harry

Read A cultural insight in full

I’ve been busy this past week, making progress with projects at work and exploring more of what Salt Lake City (SLC) has to offer.

Last weekend I headed into Downtown SLC to visit City Creek, a new shopping mall. In true English style, the first shop I visited was Teavana, a shop selling specialty teas and accessories. There I stocked up on some good quality English Breakfast Tea, which has been helping with the early morning starts for work!

Whilst walking around Downtown I also noticed these GREENbikes. They seem to work in a similar way to the Boris Bikes in London and are used as an environmentally friendly way to get around the city. The GREENbikes are sponsored by Rio Tinto!

Last week at the mine I set up the experiments for the bacterial adaptation. Bacteria are used in the heap to aid with the leaching of copper. As the temperature of the heap rises due to the chemical reactions taking place within it, different bacteria must be used that are suited to the elevated temperatures.

It’s my job to adapt and culture the next set of bacteria to deal with the high temperatures being reached within the heap.

On Friday I was fortunate enough to go and see Stage 4 of the Tour of Utah cycle race that was taking place in Salt Lake City. I had been given a VIP pass from Rio Tinto, which gave me access to the race right up at the finish line and also got me some great food!

This weekend was the Salt Lake County Fair, at the Equestrian Center not far from where I am living. I spent a whole day there, watching the livestock auctions and looking at the prize winning vegetables, crafts, paintings and photographs.

In the evening I went to the Mexican Rodeo held at the Fair. It turned out to be far more Mexican that I had anticipated; the whole commentary was in Spanish, very fast Spanish! Fortunately, the idea is simple: one sits on a bull and tries to stay on for as long as possible (generally no longer than 5 seconds).

I managed to take a couple of pictures but it’s difficult to catch when it all moves so quickly. In between the rodeo on the bulls there were also some performances with horses dancing to music and even a kid’s rodeo, where the bulls were substituted for sheep and the men substituted for small children. All in all it was great fun!

This week at work I will be performing checks on the bacteria to see if they have matured. Once they have reached maturity I can start working on the scale-up process. My current batch of 500ml isn’t going to spread very far over the heap!

Eventually, all being well, the bacteria will be grown in 2500 gallon tanks.

I also went to collect some ore samples for use in some agglomeration experiments. This involved digging up some rocks and putting them into buckets. Mining in one of its most primitive forms! These tests aim to give better indication of how to prepare the ore for use in a heap before starting to irrigate it with the leaching liquor.

For those of you wanting to know more about what goes on at Kennecott, this video follows the journey of the ore from the mine, a few miles behind my apartment, as it travels along the process, heading around 20 miles north, where it is turned into 99.99% pure copper: http://kennecott.com/about-us#prettyPhoto

I’m heading out to San Francisco next weekend, so expect my next blog post to be filled with tourist pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge and similar!

Until then,

Liam

Read This was my first rodeo! in full

Blogging from the Great Barrier Reef. How could we not?

Ok… so we are not exactly fully submerged in water right now, more like chilling at the airport rocking some sunburn. But the facts are still the same: what an absolutely awesome weekend!

On Friday night we lucky three jetted off to Cairns, a tropical town about two hours north of Brisbane, in the hope of catching a wee glimpse of everyone’s favourite lil’ fish, Nemo. We managed to bag an absolute bargain, staying at a backpacker’s hostel – fittingly called The Globetrotters – where we got the fine privilege of a bed… just a bed.

Wake-up for us was an eye-watering 5.00am, but the notion that we would soon be kicking it back with some of the ocean’s finest was far too exciting for sleeping! Also, walking out of your door to this view was eye-opening enough – check it out!

After renting a waterproof camera (we couldn’t resist), we boarded our little vessel prepared with every herbal remedy we could think of to protect us from falling sea sick – blame this on Izzy. A two hour boat journey later (let’s just say Izzy’s medicine didn’t quite help everyone… sorry Tom) we finally arrived at the Great Barrier Reef. And believe us we have never seen such stunning water, it’s SO blue!

We got kitted up in our dive gear and it was heavy enough that we actually had to be awkwardly plopped/pushed into the water – pretty embarrassing to say the least! Soon we were entering what seemed like an underwater VIP club with access to all areas, seeing fish of every colour, shape and size. Even the coral was alive and pulsating. It was very special, but our adventures didn’t end there.

We were lucky enough to see the reef from above in a private helicopter (student life seriously does have its perks!). Believe us, as cheesy as it sounds, it really puts the uniqueness of our planet into perspective. The area we flew over was just a tiny portion of the reef. Cue mind-blowing pilot fact of the day: the Great Barrier Reef is the largest living organism in the world. Crazy!

The rest of the day was spent snorkelling at different locations along the reef. It was a great way to spy on life under the sea – it was literally just us and the reef, and there was so much to see! But sadly Finding Nemo is harder than it sounds.

After recovering from all the salt gulping, we spent our final day in Cairns walking through the botanical gardens and rainforests before trekking up Mount Whitfield. We felt like right Steve Irwin’s stopping to look at all the birds and other wildlife. Croc watch update: we are yet to see one! Despite this, our time in Cairns was absolutely fab – one of the most memorable from our journey so far and we feel privileged to have experienced one of our planet’s natural wonders together.

So before you get to thinking that we’re having a wee holiday out here, we really have been working away microwaving and breaking more rocks! We cannot believe we are going into our sixth week at the JK and our project is coming together very nicely.

Our first sets of results have come back from the assayers and suggest the “Secret Squirrel” may be very promising. We haven’t mentioned how the RBT machine (see last blog) decided to “break” on us last week. Literally will never forget the feeling of a half a million pound machine going down, but as our supervisor proudly says, “nothing a hammer and a splash of WD40 cannot fix”. Ahh, the ups and downs of doing experimental work!

Sadly our GeoMetallurgy lectures have come to an end, but the lessons learnt will not be forgotten. It definitely has opened our minds to the importance of understanding ore variability, and the need for integration between all disciplines. Also, we were lucky enough to be invited by Professor Paulo Vasconcelos – Head of the Earth Science department at UQ – to a thesis presentation evening sponsored by Vale. It was a fantastic opportunity to meet other like-minded geophysicists and to discuss future career possibilities within the mining industry.

Our internship here in Oz is seriously going from strength to strength and as you can see we are also grabbing every opportunity to explore the country – trips to Sydney and the Sunshine coast are definitely on the cards!

We must be off as our plane back to Brisbane is about to board – one of the perks of a super saver light ticket means you are the last to leave the airport!

And so another week on The Secret Squirrel commences… See y’all later,

Hayley and Izzy

P.S. After sun is getting slathered on as soon as we get through the door!

Read Flying high down under – the Great Barrier Reef in full

Hello everyone! So, another week has passed and my time here is flying by. I still cannot quite believe that I have only been here for two weeks as I have done so much already, both at UCT and also in my spare time.

I am sure you will all be glad to know that I have actually started the proper dirty work this week, and I can now see why coal miners are always depicted as being covered in coal dust as it does seem to go everywhere! I have now started lab work properly along with my lab partner Emma, and have been undertaking froth flotation experiments to determine which is the most successful and efficient method for desulphurisation of coal, specifically a South African coal from the North East of the country in the Waterberg region.

This stage is virtually complete and then we will move onto coal from another coalfield in a different area of the country, which is of a different composition. The aim is to see if the composition of the coal will affect the amount of desulphurisation when using different chemical collectors.

Apart from this, we have also been preparing samples to send off to another lab to determine the composition of each coal type. We are also in the process of manufacturing blocks to analyse the coal samples under the microscope, which will be very different to the ‘normal’ microscope work using rock sections that I am used to.

Now that I have shown you that I am actually working hard out here, I can talk about what else I’ve been up to, including attending an ice hockey match – a new experience for all of us working out here, but very exciting! The most notable feature of this week has been the glorious weather – clear blue skies and sun all week. I would be happy with this weather during a British Summer, but it’s meant to be winter here. This explains photos of me in shorts at the weekend, as it really was that nice!

On Saturday, a lady at the university called Mymoena was incredibly kind and took us all out for a day trip to the Cape Peninsula, which is to the southwest of the city. We drove around the eastern side of the peninsula in the morning following the coastline around False Bay where we stopped in Fish Hoek, a very picturesque town, for a quick paddle in the chilly ocean water at the beach before continuing along the coast towards Cape Point.

The National Park contains a variety of animals from zebra (which are rare so unfortunately we didn’t see any!) to ostrich (we saw four of these) and also smaller animals such as dassies, which are large guinea pig-like animals that live throughout the Table Mountain range.

We drove through the National Park, which is stunning due to the remote and exposed nature of the Peninsula, where the nearest land to the South is Antarctica. Cape Point also roughly marks the boundary between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans as well as the Cape of Good Hope, the most southwestern point in Africa.

On Sunday, I visited some family that I have in the city. The last time I was here was almost exactly a decade ago so despite seeing them since in the UK, it was great to be visiting them in a sunny Cape Town once again.

So I think that is enough of me making everyone jealous… especially back in the UK where I have heard that the typical summer weather has started with torrential rain! I hope that you are all enjoying what I have to say so far – leave a message if you want me to talk about anything in particular. I still have seven weeks left, so plenty more time to explore… I’ll be back soon with lots more stories.

Cheers for now,

Harry

Read Cape Town at its best – in the sun! in full

I’ve just finished my first week out here in Salt Lake City, Utah, working as an Intern Process Engineer at the Bingham Canyon Copper Mine with Rio Tinto.

They have given me this fantastic opportunity to gain practical experience of the mining industry to complement my Chemical Engineering studies at Imperial College.

Situated in Salt Lake Valley, the surrounding mountains provide Salt Lake City with a stunning backdrop on both the eastern and western sides. The picture was taken north of Downtown Salt Lake City and gives a view down through the whole valley. The Bingham Canyon Mine is situated to the right of this picture, approximately 18 miles away, and on that clear day it could be seen with the naked eye.

The Bingham Canyon Mine has been in operation since 1906 and is one of the most productive mines in the world. The mine has produced over seventeen million tons of copper, and the open pit is now over half a mile deep. My work at the mine is based at the Chalcopyrite Heap Leaching Plant, aiming to deliver value from lower grade ores.

In short, we take a heap of ore containing relatively small amounts of copper and pour sulphuric acid over it, to try and extract as much of the copper as possible. During my first week at work, I was required to attend a Mine Safety Training Course provided by the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA).

MSHA is a federal body here in the USA that works to ensure the safe operation of all mines within the States. After the three days of training I was rewarded with the three certificates below and am now able to work at Metal, Non-Metal and Coal Surface Mine operations here in the USA. (Subject to further on-site task specific training, of course!)

Rio Tinto have provided me with a rental car, well… a truck (see picture), during my time here in Salt Lake City, which has been very useful for getting

around and exploring the Valley.

Last weekend a friend came to visit me and together we headed up to the Wasatch Mountains in the Big Cottonwood Canyon (on the eastern side of the valley) and ate at a great seafood boil restaurant called Bucket o’ Crawfish!

Next week at work I will be analysing drill sample data obtained from the heap. I will also be starting some work on bacterial adaptation and scale-up processes. I will keep you updated on how that all develops in due course!

Liam

Read Blogging from Salt Lake City in full

So, my time in Cape Town has begun for the next 8 weeks and I have already been here for a week – I really can’t believe it! Since finding out how I would be spending my summer (unfortunately not summer in the Southern Hemisphere), 6000 miles (ish) away from home, I didn’t quite believe I would eventually be living and working in what is regarded as one of the best cities in the world!

So you may be wondering how I managed to spend so much time in such an amazing place…. Well, I was lucky enough to be awarded the Rio Tinto scholarship, a new initiative created this year to form a partnership between Imperial College and Rio Tinto, one of the biggest mining companies in the world.

This means that I along with 11 others (3 of whom are here with me in Cape Town) have been sent off across the world to universities, mines and research centres to get an insight into mining related work that goes on.

I arrived in Cape Town just over a week ago and have done so much already. I started work at the University of Cape Town (UCT) on Monday and was thrown straight into my task for the next 9 weeks; being part of a research group that looks into Acid Rock Drainage from mine waste. It sounds glamorous I know!

Without going into the depths of the science, basically acid forms when coal mine waste is dumped, which then pollutes water. Research is being undertaken to prevent this happening by treating the waste before it is dumped.

I will be looking at a process called Froth Flotation, something which is also researched at Imperial, to improve the process in which sulphur (the thing that helps form the acid) is removed from coal before it is dumped.

This will involve lots of lab work, which is meant to be very messy (cue for sympathy) but hopefully will prove useful to the mining industry as a whole! So those are the basics of the work I will be doing over the next 8 weeks and I will keep you updated with my progress over time.

So, Cape Town. What have I done so far you may wonder? Surely I haven’t been slaving away doing some crazy thing to do with floating coal for all of this time?! And you would be right!

So far I have climbed to the top of Lion’s Head, which is a peak adjacent to Table Mountain above the city. At sunset of the Full Moon, the sun sets in the West and the Full Moon is meant to rise in the East. Unfortunately, it clouded over about 5 minutes before sunset – typical, but the 360 degree views across the entire city were incredible (see photo).

This weekend, I along with Emma and Alice (2 of the other Rio Tinto scholars here in Cape Town) have spent time exploring the city centre, avoiding the periods of torrential rain (ironically missing the semi-heatwave in the UK), visiting museums in the city and walking to Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens. Overall, I have had an awesome first week in South Africa and I am feeling very excited for the next 8 weeks and what it will bring.

I will try to keep you updated with everything I am doing from research at the university, to day drips at weekends and a local ice hockey match tomorrow (random I know!)

Bye for now,

Harry

Read Floating coal and exploring my home in full

This blog has just been created. Come back soon to read more from Liam Bale, Harry Fisher, Isobel Mackay and Hayley Meek on their summer internships.

Read Hello world! in full