Key points
- CSIRO’s Mineral Resources Sensing and Sorting team has developed magnetic resonance and radio frequency technologies that enable real-time detection of minerals, explosives, and narcotics.
- MagnaTerra Technologies is a newly formed company valued at $150 million, merging two CSIRO spin-outs, NextOre and MRead, originating from the work of this team.
- The team is expanding applications to include landmine and narcotics detection.
On the Lucas Heights Science and Technology Centre campus, south of Sydney, a team of scientists and engineers is quietly revolutionising the mining industry. CSIRO’s Sensing and Sorting group is turning deep science into high-impact technology. And the world is starting to take notice.
In July, two CSIRO spin-outs — NextOre and MRead — merged to form MagnaTerra Technologies, a $150 million company born from years of research. It’s a milestone that underscores CSIRO’s unique ability to take complex science and turn it into commercial success.
Dr David Miljak, who has led CSIRO’s Sensing and Sorting program since 2020, said success comes from solving real-world problems with “a clarity of purpose that drives innovation”.
From radio waves to real-world Impact
The CSIRO Lucas Heights facility is home to 28 staff working across two research groups: Magnetic Resonance and X-ray Technology. Their labs are just steps away from testing spaces, including cavernous pilot-scale facilities for nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) testing, a white ‘wax castle’ for neutron research and an X-ray bunker.
“The site has a very high bar on safety culture and a lot of knowledge around the processes we’re working on, like advanced X-ray, high-power radio frequencies (RF) and nuclear based work. It’s an excellent site for our group to be co-located,” said Dr Miljak.
The team’s breakthrough in ore-sorting came from an unexpected source. A colleague returned from a conference where researchers from King’s College London were using radio waves to detect explosives. That sparked an idea: could similar technology be used to detect minerals?
In 2001, the team achieved its first successful measurement of a mineral sample. Years of experimentation and engineering development followed. The technology is a 'cousin' of medical MRI and involves pulsing radio waves into ore, tuned to the frequency of a target mineral, enabling real-time analysis and sorting. Applying this sensing technology for sorting in mining operations can save water and energy, as well as boost productivity.
Engineering new science into tools and products
But turning lab success into field-ready tech wasn’t easy. It took the expertise of mechanical, software, electronics and systems engineers to crack the creation of a field testable product.
Senior engineer and team leader for RF and digital systems, Mr Dragoslav (Drago) Milinkovic led efforts to shrink massive energy requirements into compact, safe and resilient systems.
“You hit the ore with 50 to 100 kilowatts of pulsed power and listen for a tiny signal back,” Mr Milinkovic explained.
“It’s a huge RF engineering challenge. We’re essentially converting 240-volt power to radio-frequency power, which requires a lot of RF engineering and electronics.”
But they did it.
That work led to the launch of NextOre in 2017, which brought CSIRO’s sensing technology to mining sites around the world.
The lithium frontier
Now, the team is tackling a new challenge: lithium. With global demand soaring, CSIRO is developing sensing technologies to identify lithium-bearing rocks, specifically spodumene in igneous pegmatites.
Dr Richard Yong leads the Magnetic Resonance Development team.
“We’ve got a few runs on the board with the copper-sensing and de-mining technologies, and now we’re trying to develop sensing technologies for lithium, a critical mineral,” said Dr Yong.
The team’s original MR sensing did away with the giant magnets that medical MRI machines use. But they needed to bring them back for lithium.
Dr Yong worked on the project that took NextOre’s conveyor-belt MR sensing to develop open-geometry sensing, a giant sensor suspended from a gantry to enable real-time analysis of ore in haul trucks. An enormous fibreglass prototype still sits inside the pilot scale facilities warehouse.
Their latest project involves integrating large electromagnets, similar to those in MRI machines, into mining environments. The goal: to build a sorting machine that can detect lithium-rich rocks before they’re refined, improving efficiency and reducing waste.
“Sensing copper doesn’t need the application of a large static field but lithium does, so our latest frontier is working out how to integrate a large electromagnet that will work at a mine site,” added Dr Yong.
The team is working on building a sorting machine that will identify which crushed rocks bear the target mineral before they are further refined. A diverter gate pushes out the uneconomic rock while keeping the lithium-rich rock.
Improving the sorting economics for even one or two lithium mines could bring big benefits for Australia in terms of jobs, royalties and global competitiveness.
“We’ve progressed the technology up to a point where we need to answer a few lingering questions about how it will work at scale,” said Dr Yong.
“We have an industry partnership that has provided funding to turbo-charge the later parts of our science work to answer questions that are specific to their site.”
The hope is that field trials will commence in the next 12 to 18 months.
Miniaturising big ideas for landmine detection
Now the team is flexing their expertise into landmine detection.
“Saving lives in areas contaminated by landmines is a project that motivates us all,” said Dr Miljak.
The team is developing compact MR-based devices to accurately detect explosives for humanitarian demining. This technology is now being commercialised by MRead.
The need is urgent. An estimated 110 million active landmines are scattered across 70 countries, causing around 5,700 casualties in 2023. Clearing them is slow and dangerous with just 160 to 200 thousand removed annually.
“We use similar techniques to those our group developed for ore sensing but apply it to the detection of explosives and narcotics,” explained Dr Peggy Schönherr, Team Leader, Magnetic Resonance Instrumentation.
“But we had to shrink the bulky mineral-sensing equipment into a briefcase-sized unit with a detection wand that looks like a Space-age metal detector. It had to be light enough for one person to carry into the field and robust enough to handle heat, humidity, dust and shock.”
The project accelerated when humanitarian demining organisation The HALO Trust invited MRead to test the technology in Angola.
“Designing something lightweight but still effective was a new challenge for us,” said Dr Schönherr.
“We had to rethink how the sensor components were arranged and invent several new elements to make it work.”
In just 18 months, the team built two working devices.
“Dr Schönherr’s team has been really important in this last challenging bit – to make the technology fit to work in the field,” said Dr Miljak.
“Mr Milinkovic’s team of engineers custom-built all the electronics themselves for the devices in their lab, including the transmitter. They made it possible.”
Dr Schönherr travelled to Angola to support the field trials.
“It was incredible to see deminers using our device and to understand how long it takes to clear even a small area,” Dr Schönherr said.
“Getting their feedback helped us understand the real-world challenges they face.”
Ore-some impacts through science and innovation
What began as a bold idea in a high-security lab has grown into MagnaTerra with technologies now deployed across continents and sectors. Their journey, from copper to lithium, from mining to humanitarian demining, is a testament to the power of purpose-driven innovation.
As global challenges grow more complex, the team continues to push boundaries, turning radio waves into tools for progress. Their work is not just about sensing minerals or detecting explosives. It’s about sensing opportunity and sorting out solutions that matter.