Environment and Mining

Environment, Mining, Oil & Gas

• Studying in situ phase transformations in geological samples under extremes of temperature and pressure.

• Evaluating the performance and ageing of materials (e.g. metals and polymers) used for the storage and transport of petroleum

and petrochemical products.

• Studying the structure and composition of meteorites and interplanetary dust.

• Mineral and rock microstructural analysis to help evaluate

new mining opportunities and assess natural oil and gas reservoirs.

• Assessing environmental contamination, including identifying

extremely low concentrations of elements associated with the petrochemical and mining industries.

• Real-time imaging of water flow in geomaterials, in concrete and for cooling applications in the nuclear industry.

•Characterising zeolites to improve oil catalytic cracking.

• Phase and structure mapping of concrete mixtures during in situ

wetting.

• Studying emulsions to improve oil transport.

• Analysis of trace elements in petroleum and petrochemical products.

• Characterising rock fossils to improve the extraction of fossil fuels.

• Elemental and speciation analysis of crude oil.

• Chemical characterisation to improve waste management.

• Analysis of major components with <1% uncertainty and trace elements at parts-per-billion concentrations.

EXAMPLE

Kerogen

Large reserves of natural gas are held within an organic material called kerogen. Currently the gas can be extracted by hydraulic fracturing, but this is a controversial extraction technique. An international group of scientists studied different kerogen samples using X-ray scattering techniques. This allowed the scientists to develop molecular models of kerogen. These findings could open doors to improved extraction technologies.

EXAMPLE

Digital Rock Analysis

Digital Rock Analysis is a technique for extracting nanometre- to centimetre-scale geological and petrophysical information from digitised rock samples. Researchers from a company specialising in digital rock analysis used X-ray nano-tomography to scan rock samples at a 280 nanometre voxel size. The acquired images provided a level of detail that cannot be achieved using lab-based CT, and can be used to create 3D rock models that predict rock properties with a high degree of confidence.

EXAMPLE

Neutron Diffraction

In its quest to reduce CO2 emissions from aluminium production, a leading global mining group used neutron diffraction to observe the interactions of minerals and molten salts at high temperature (>800°C) over several hours. The industrial engineers are using the results to optimise their process parameters.

Environment, Mining, Oil & Gas

Kerogen

​

Digital Rock Analysis

Neutron Diffraction