Respect for the Environment Through Optics and Photonics

For several years now, Rio Tinto, a mining group and aluminum producer, has been committed to conducting its operations with a vision focused on sustainable development.

Reducing dust emissions is a priority on which the company is continuously working to improve its environmental performance. It is in this context that Rio Tinto’s team at its port facilities in La Baie, Saguenay, was looking for a solution to measure fugitive dust emissions. Rio Tinto needed technology that was efficient, reliable, robust, and easy to deploy in the field to measure and quantify the effectiveness of the mitigation measures put in place.

A Rio Tinto-INO partnership has made it possible to meet this need. Rio Tinto is now working with Aeromap, our lidar technology, to map absolute and relative concentrations of dust and aerosols in the air.

Thanks to the expertise of the INO team, Rio Tinto was able to quantify the data resulting from its dust emission reduction strategy. Aeromap is a safe and effective solution for measuring dust emissions. The collaboration between INO and Rio Tinto continues; the partners are working on integrating an adapted version of Aeromap. Other optics-based tools for environmental monitoring are also part of Rio Tinto’s ongoing work with INO.