As part of its strategic approach to reducing net carbon emissions from the Mount Peake Project, TNG Limited has announced it’s advancing several green energy initiatives, including pre-development optimisation and medium- to longer-term initiatives, to be implemented after development and operational start-up.
In a statement, TNG said it is aware of the Commonwealth Government’s goal for a significant net reduction in carbon emissions by 2030. As a result, TNG stated it must take these longer-term strategic planning horizons into account for its carbon emissions management.
TNG’s key focus is cutting carbon emissions from planned processing operations at Mount Peake. With the potential for hydrogen to be used as the reduction agent in the TIVAN Process, TNG said it has advanced work on the potential development of green hydrogen production technology for applications at the Mount Peake mine site.
“TNG aspires to make the Mount Peake Project a class leader in terms of carbon emissions and the use of the renewable energy, and we’re actively assessing opportunities across the mining and processing operations to help us achieve this objective,” TNG Managing Director and CEO Paul Burton said.
TNG’s TIVAN hydrometallurgical process extracts three high-quality products from titanomagnetite ore bodies. Following processing, the titanomagnetite concentrate is transferred to a rotary kiln, with coke traditionally added as the reduction agent to reduce the iron oxides in the concentrate to metallic iron.
TNG has commissioned Metso Outotec to investigate the feasibility of replacing coke with hydrogen gas as a single reductant. The investigation aims to determine whether Metso Outotec’s Circored technology can be integrated into the TIVAN process flowsheet to reduce the Project’s net carbon footprint.
Metso Outotec has preliminarily assessed the suitability of a hydrogen reductant using Mount Peake titanomagnetite concentrate as a feedstock.
Furthermore, Metso Outotec has now been commissioned to conduct a study to further define the process flowsheet for the Mount Peake Project and prepare a preliminary capital and operating cost for a Circored Plant, allowing TNG to evaluate the hydrogen reduction processing option in greater detail.
“Building on the positive results from the preliminary testwork program, we’re very encouraged by the opportunity to potentially reduce carbon emissions from the processing operation at Mount Peake by using Metso Outotec’s Circored technology. This study also complements our existing partnership with SMS group to investigate green hydrogen production at Mount Peake,” Burton said.
TNG will test the downstream flowsheet in parallel with Australian testwork laboratories using the hydrogen-reduced concentrate produced by Metso Outotec.
Creating a source of green hydrogen that could be used in a Metso Outotec Circored Plant is another task that TNG is still working to advance. TNG also collaborated with the German engineering company SMS Group to create a CO2-neutral method for producing green hydrogen through plasma pyrolysis while utilising renewable electrical energy.
