The competition focuses on the evaluation of a hard rock mineral deposit and the development of a potential flowsheet and process design. Deposits that are evaluated can be precious metals, base metals or industrial minerals. This year's design problem was for a lithium and boron deposit.
The competition is done in two phases. In the first phase, the UK College of Engineering team competed with 26 other schools to successfully qualify for the second phase. In the second phase, the team finished in first place over traditional metallic mining schools, including two teams from the University of Arizona and three Peruvian mining schools.
"This first place is a demonstration that our students are being prepared to succeed in the mining industry, no matter the mineral resource of interest," said Jack Groppo, the UK College of Engineering Director of Undergraduate Studies. "Our students know how to carefully consider the environment and social restrictions to supply the needs of our modern society. Groppo is a faculty advisor of the team along with Jhon Silva.
The mining engineering student team members are Zach Wedding, Elliott Morgan, Chris Dawalt, Cassidy Crouch, Kyle Ressler and Anthonie Meador. The competition is open to national and international teams from mining schools all over the world.