Blair Benner, Program Director

Position and Focus

Blair Benner is director of the Minerals Beneficiation Program within the Minerals Division at the Coleraine Minerals Research Laboratory. He has over 30 years of research and development experience in mineral processing and extractive metallurgy: 10 years with emphasis on base metals and 20 years of primarily iron ore processing research and development. His research has been carried from the bench scale and applied to commercial operations. Most recently his focus has been directed toward the application of mineral processing techniques for environmental clean up.

Background

M.S. Extractive and Chemical Metallurgy, Stanford University, 1971
B.S. Metallurgy, Penn State, 1969

Project list for Blair Benner :

(A link will go to the projects current report, an arrow will take you to a projects home page)

Investigation of Mercury Vaporization During Induration and Removal of Mercury from Scrubber Solids

Hydroseparator Modeling
To develop a mathematical model of hydroseparators, which could be used for simulation, optimization, and control of hydroseparator operating conditions.
Distribution of Mercury During the Processing of Copper-Nickel Ores
To determine the distribution of mercury during flotation and subsequent pressure leaching of the bulk flotation concentrate.
Grant Writing and Grant Search for Minnesota Taconite Operations, State and Federal Department of Energy (DOE)
To provide funding to NRRI/CMRL Director and staff engineers to evaluate State and Federal DOE grant opportunities, and to work with Minnesota taconite operations to write and submit grants for energy projects in taconite.
Full Scale Mercury Sorbent Testing at Boswell
To run a full scale sorbent addition test on Unit 1 at Minnesota Power`s Boswell Energy Station in Cohasset, Minnesota. One or more mercury removal sorbents developed at the Coleraine Minerals Research Laboratory will be injected as dry sorbents into the 75 MW unit`s 250,000 cfm stack gas stream prior to the unit`s baghouse. Stack gas mercury measurements will be conducted before and after the sorbent addition to evaluate the efficiency of mercury removal.
Slip Stream Pilot Plant for Testing Mercury Removal Methods for Taconite Flue Gases
To design and install a slip stream pilot plant at one of the taconite plants so that various mercury removal methods can be evaluated using real plant gases.
Copper-Nickel Deposits, Investigation of Various Flotation Reagent Schemes for the Flotation of Sulfides from Minnesota`s
To determine the best reagent schemes for recovering copper and nickel sulfides from the various Minnesota deposits, to train Coleraine Minerals Research Laboratory (CMRL) technicians in the ``art`` of sulfide flotation, and to develop analytical expertise in copper and nickel.
2009 USS Research Contract
NRRI`s Coleraine Minerals Research Laboratory (CMRL) will conduct research and development work for U.S. Steel`s Minntac and Keewatin Taconite plants in the areas of size reduction, classification, flotation, magnetic separation, filtering, balling, indurating, and pellet quality improvement. Research and development work will be conducted using bench and pilot scale equipment at CMRL in addition to in-plant test work at the mining operations plant sites.