A three-day long international conference on Processing of lean Grade and Urban Ores (IC-lGO 2015) organised by CSIR-National Metallurgical laboratory (NMl), Jamshedpur in association with the Indian Institute of Metals (IIM), Jamshedpur Chapter kicked off at NMl auditorium. A total of 270 delegates, which include 40 foreign and 230 Indian delegates, attended the inaugural function. IC-lGO-2015 will cover 155 technical papers in which 134 oral presentations (including Plenary, Keynote and Invited lectures) and 21 posters.
Many eminent personalities from all over the world including Prof Michael Free, Jochen Petersen, David Dreisinger, Prof Takashi Nakamura from USA, South Africa, Canada, Japan, respectively as well as Industries, Academic Institutions and R&D organisations in India will take part in the deliberations, taking lots of pain and to make the conference a success.
The conference is fully sponsored by private sector companies like Tata Steel, Eco-Reco, Usha Martin, Adhunik, E- Parisara, ADV Metal Combine Pvt. ltd, FEI, leica Microsystems, Jindal Saw, KIGAM and many more other than a limited Government grants.The chief guest, Prof Kwadwo Osseo-Asare, Penn State University from USA in his address stressed the need of mining the urban waste as they are in a alarming situation and are problematic in terms of material collections, sorting, processing, and separation of valuable metals.
However, it will be suicidal unless we look for some way out as it may lead to environmental disastrous. And these issues are global, not confined to a State or a region. Therefore, a conference like IC-lGO becomes very relevant in providing a common platform wherein one can collectively look for some solution or a value addition, Prof Osseo-Asare added.
The guest of honour Dr RN Patra, said “Need for inclusive economic growth has made it imperative to conserve the limited natural resources by adopting enhanced technology measures, in the field of recycling, reuse and reducing consumption of precious natural resources, now the whole world is looking at India as a market place. Our Atomic energy resources started with very lean grade uranium ore (400 ppm) whereas rest of the world deals at above 1% rich uranium ore, therefore, India had a very wise beginning in the field of Atomic energy.”
CSIR-NMl Director S Srikanth, while welcoming the gathering said “Based on the current global requirements as due to rapid development, exploitation of high grade ore and stringent environmental regulations, it is necessary to have a discussion to find the solution to get alternative resources by using the lean grade ores, fines and different type of wastes (new terminology urban mining). If we could find the solutions it will be helpful to conserve the natural resources as well as protect the environment.