Dandenong-based Ausmelt Limited has won the inaugural Victorian Export Award for Innovation Excellence and the Minerals and Energy Award in the 2002 Governor of Victoria Export Awards.
These accolades reflect the international success that the company has enjoyed since it foundation in 1994.
Ausmelt was originally established to commercialise the top submerged lance metal smelting technology invented by Dr John Floyd while he was employed by the CSIRO.
While non-ferrous metal smelting technology remains a key focus, Ausmelt has in recent years extended its application into iron and steel where its AusIron technology is patented and also into treatment of waste materials.
Ausmelt is becoming an important leader in the industrial waste treatment sector especially in reducing the quantities of spent or untreated materials currently sent to landfill.
Ausmelt has also provided the R&D impetus for a new mineral flotation reagent. Known as AM2, the reagent offers significant improvement in the recovery of metals from oxidised (or weathered) mineral ores.
The reagent is undergoing trials at a north Queensland mine site has attracted strong interest from international mining and metals treatment companies.
Ausmelt says it envisages other new innovative technologies capable of commercialisation will become even bigger contributors to the growth of the business over the next two to three years.
At the end of this month Ausmelt managing director Paul Abbott will attend the opening of the Anglo Platinum Corporation smelter in Rustenberg, South Africa, the first project where the company’s smelter technology has been used for the production of nickel and platinum group metals.
“Significant opportunities are seen for this technology in Japan and Europe as the current waste incineration techniques employed in these markets create environmental problems by generating dioxins and furans,” Abbott said.
Another success for Ausmelt in the past year was the creation of technology for the treatment of spent pot lining, an environmentally hazardous waste product created by aluminium smelters.
Developed at the Portland Aluminium smelter this technology could have significant potential as aluminium smelters usually stockpile spent pot lining, while the world production is more than half a million tonnes annually.