Australian Strategic Materials is pressing ahead with its Dubbo, NSW rare earths project with ambitious plans to value-add the strategically important materials in Australia. The company, a subsidiary of listed miner Alkane Resources, is developing the Dubbo deposit containing zirconium, rare earths, niobium and halfnium. These are minerals critical to advanced industries with more than…
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Every year, treated wastewater sludge called “biosolids” is recycled and spread over agricultural land. My recent research discovered this practice dumps thousands of tonnes of microplastics into farmlands around the world. In Australia, we estimate this amount as at least 1,241 tonnes per year.
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A team from Griffith University has developed a low-cost ventilator and published the open-source design on GitHub.
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International mining engineering firm Austin Engineering is reviewing its South American operations following the loss of a key contract due to a mine stoppage sparked by Covid-19. The company told investors a repair contract had been terminated in Columbia by mutual consent forcing the retrenchment of more than 200 employees. Entitlement payouts of $1 million…
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The National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) has launched two new ‘good practice guides’ as part of their response to issues raised by Industry 4.0 technologies. The guides lay out frameworks for how best to incorporate essential digital skills into vocational education and training (VET) delivery and to upskill VET educators. The guides Incorporating…
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Over April, we invited the @AuManufacturing and Australian Manufacturing Forum communities to have their say on what policies the sector needs to thrive.
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@AuManufacturing’s highly successful new deal plan for manufacturing was aimed at Australia’s policy makers. Our new series, crowd sourced advice from our manufacturing community, aims to help businesses transform their operations to compete and grow through new tools and technologies. Here Gary Walsh explains why it’s important to commercialise new materials by taking ideas out of the lab and into industrial reality
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A regional Victorian company that has developed technologies to reuse ammunition containers, has signed a $15 million contract with Defence. Pentarch Industrial, based in Wangaratta, Victoria has been awarded a six-year contract to supply, refurbish and recycle ammunition containers. Minister for Defence Industry Melissa Price said: “Pentarch’s system enables containers to be reused, rather than…
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It’s being reported that Sanjay Gupta has begun a review of GFG Alliance’s Whyalla steel plant, which has suffered losses exacerbated by the Covid-19 downturn, in an attempt to make it run as leanly as possible ahead of a planned new plant opening in 2024.
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Interest from local suppliers in Phase 3 of LAND 400 appears strong, with the federal government announcing “a record” 400-plus participants, despite a pandemic, in the Australian Industry Capability Roadshow running from March to May.
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