New Book: Handbook of Recycling

This is the 2nd edition of the Handbook of Recycling, published this month and edited by Christina Meskers, Ernst Worrell and Markus A. Reuter. 

The first edition was winner of the International Solid Waste Association's 2014 Publication Award and is an authoritative review of the current state of recycling, reuse and reclamation processes commonly implemented today and how they interact with one another. 

Fully updated to cover recent developments in the field, this second edition has also been restructured to cover General Aspects of Recycling, Applications, Technology, Recovery and Collection, Economics, Governance and Policy. Several new chapters on global recycled material flows, sludges, reinforced plastics, and landfill mining have been added. It concludes with a review of the policy and economic implications, including the impact of recycling on energy use, sustainable development, and the environment.

This book is a crucial aid to students and researchers in a range of disciplines, from materials and environmental science to public policy studies.

Action needed to raise the profile of mining education

Mining makes an enormous contribution to the UK economy and will continue to do so long into the future. To underpin this, it is vital that we continue our tradition of producing world-class mining engineers. From a career perspective, it is reassuring, given current university tuition fees, that mining engineering graduates have exciting and well-paid employment opportunities world-wide. Despite these positives, the University of Exeter’s Camborne School of Mines (CSM) is now the UK’s only provider of Mining Engineering degrees at undergraduate level at a time when the mining industry is becoming increasingly technology-driven and reliant on a highly-skilled workforce.

Ben Williamson

According to Ben Williamson, Associate Professor in Applied Mineralogy at Camborne School of Mines, this is mainly due to the negative perception of mining as ‘dirty’ and old-fashioned, and because students are not aware of its tremendous career opportunities and importance: “Without mining we would still be living in the pre-Stone Age. Just imagine life without your phone or car, or more mundane commodities such as cement or copper wires?” The industry is estimated to contribute around 45% of global GDP, either directly or via the use of mined products, and the gross value added to the UK economy of the extractive industries was around £6.5 billion in 2017. It also funds research and development in renewable energy technologies and numerous social and environmental projects.

Recycling of most metals is very far from total, such as for copper at around 50% globally, and there is still therefore a considerable requirement for primary raw materials. Of additional importance, for our transition to green and renewable energies, is that many new devices and products require huge amounts of metals for which there was previously little mining, and we therefore need new deposits. As an example, a typical wind turbine requires tonnes of the metal neodymium for high power magnets in its electric generator, which has sparked a huge increase in exploration for this metal over the last decade. Electric cars incorporate more than 3.5 times as much copper as conventional cars and a wholescale switch to their use will massively increase demand for metals such as lithium and cobalt for rechargeable batteries. The urgency for the discovery and large scale mining of raw materials is magnified in the light of an expected world population increase from the current 7.6 billion to 9.8 billion by 2050.”

Professor Williamson adds: “Most large shallow deposits of many essential commodities have already been discovered, and therefore mines will need to be deeper and for smaller deposits, which presents a number of technical and financial challenges. As such, it is crucial that we maintain a modern, efficient and environmentally and socially responsible mining industry, underpinned by a highly educated workforce. Most Mining Engineering graduates are now employed abroad, as metals and coal mining activity in the UK have all but disappeared over the last 50 years. Industrial minerals mining (mostly for aggregates) is still relatively strong. There is light at the end of the tunnel however, with the UK Department for International Trade having recently promoted Cornwall as having excellent potential for the extraction of tomorrow’s high-technology metals. Success there will hopefully build upon the high global demand for Mining Engineers, particularly for the UK’s CSM graduates, for whom the saying now goes ‘Look down any hole in the world and you will find a CSM’r!”

Far more needs to be done by the government, industry and education sector to highlight the vital role of mining in modern society, excellent career opportunities, considerable investments made by mining companies to be more environmentally and ethically responsible, and the importance of the mining sector to the UK economy.

Sources

% recycling of copper: Schipper et al. (2018). Estimating global copper demand until 2100 with regression and stock dynamics. Resources, Conservation & Recycling 132: 28–36; International Copper Association (2017)

Neodymium in wind turbines: Elements Magazine; Chemistry World  

Cu in cars: Copper Development Association Inc. 

Mining % global GDP: Mining Weekly 

Extractive industries gross added value UK economy: UK Gov

World population growth: UN

Recycling: minerals engineering's greatest challenge

Whether it be plastics or metals, recycling is very much in the news these days. And so it should be, as it is a crucial area of the move towards a circular economy, where nothing is wasted (although thermodynamics teaches us that this is impossible), and at the end of the life of a commodity, the constituent components are recycled back into the closed loop.

Minerals engineering will play a leading role in attempting to make the throw away society, the linear economy, obsolete and our Sustainable Minerals '18 conference in Namibia in June will focus on the efforts that mineral processors and extractive metallurgists are making to reduce wastes, reprocess existing wastes, and the greatest challenge of them all, recycling.

Recycling is viewed by many as the panacea of sustainability. Once an article has reached the end of its useful life, you take it to a municipal waste centre, and it is recycled for further use. This is fine for products made from a single material such as glass, which can be melted down and reused, or for certain metals which are used in their native form, such as copper. Although the demand for copper is such that over 20 million tonnes of the metal is produced each year from primary orebodies, around 50% of the copper that is used in Europe is recycled and the energy required to recycle copper is roughly 85% less than from primary production.

However when metals are alloyed with other metals or non-metals, recycling becomes much more challenging due to complex functional material linkages.   A United  Nations Environment Program (UNEP) report on metal recycling includes a great analogy: imagine making your morning coffee. With the right tools, it’s easy to combine the water, coffee, milk and sugar to create your drink (similar to a linear economy). But if you had to separate it again into the original four ingredients (as required by a circular economy), that would be rather challenging.

If the metals and other elements are in tiny amounts in a device, then the problem becomes even more complex, and perhaps the greatest recycling challenge is that of recovering metals from waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), (electric) vehicles and other complex high-tech products. Each year the world generates some 50 million tons of electronic waste, ranging from batteries to mobile phones, computers etc, and although such devices may have been discarded, they are not without value—the United Nations recently estimated the total worth of all that e-waste at $55 billion, thanks largely to the trace amounts of gold, silver, and other metals they contain.

Some of these metals, such as germanium and gallium, are dependent on their primary production on base metal mining, from which they are by-products. Indium, now critical to our modern lifestyle, is the most important ingredient, as an indium-tin oxide,  in the production of ubiquitous touch screens. Indium is produced in small amounts from the mining of Zn ores, and the sheer number of smart phones, tablets etc. produced each year requires around 700 tonnes per year of indium. Recent estimates however, suggest that total reserves are around 16,000 tonnes, so it is a very finite resource, and great efforts are being made to recycle it and other "Hi-Tech Metals", as will be discussed by Prof. Jens Gutzmer at Hi-Tech Metals '18 in Cape Town in November.

It is unfortunate that the working philosophy of most mobile phone manufacturers is planned obsolescence,  the average smartphone life cycle in Britain now being under two years and the number of mobile phone users in the world is expected to pass the five billion mark by 2019. A smart phone contains around half the elements of the periodic table, so global efforts are needed to improve the design of components in electrical and electronic equipment to facilitate reuse and recycling and the better recovery of precious metals.

One mobile phone manufacturer which is taking a lead on this is the Dutch company Fairphone, who is taking steps to increase the life of its Fairphone 2, and has enlisted the help of two world experts on recycling, simulation and life-cycle assessment to assess the best way of recycling the phone to recover the maximum amount of contained metals. Dr. Antoinette van Schaik, of MARAS BV, The Netherlands, and Prof. Markus Reuter, the Director of the Helmholtz Institute for Resource Technology, Germany, have worked together for many years on the simulation of recycling systems, including life-cycle assessment and the circular economy (linking product design with physical and metallurgical processing). Markus is MEI's consultant for the Sustainable Minerals conferences, and he was recently awarded the degree of Doctor of Engineering (DEng), honoris causa, by his alma  mater, The University of Stellenbosch, for his outstanding contributions to the science and technology of the production and recycling of metals, as well as to the integration of academic research and practice. His work on recycling, design for recycling, and resource efficiency has contributed towards the creation of processes and tools to develop a sustainable society.

van Schaik and Reuter

Antoinette and Markus used simulation software designed by Sustainable Minerals '18 sponsor Outotec to create models of how all the different elements, alloys, plastics and materials associations in the Fairphone 2 behave in the best recycling technologies available today and which existing techniques could offer the highest recovery rates. Markus will present and discuss their findings at Sustainable Minerals '18. The basis of this work has been published in Minerals Engineering over the years and has now found its path into Outotec’s HSC Sim, considering uniquely the full “mineral” properties of products and scrap to understand how these pass through physical separation and metallurgical processing systems of the Circular Economy.

Recycling and innovative new business models are without doubt society's greatest challenges, and mineral processing and extractive metallurgy will be at the forefront of meeting these challenges, so please do join us in Namibia in June for Sustainable Minerals '18, which runs back to back with Biohydrometallurgy '18, also very much involved with the move towards the circular economy. Then in Cape Town in November, Hi-Tech Metals '18 will present the latest developments in the primary and secondary processing of the metals which are now essential elements of our modern society.

Events not to be missed by progressive modern minerals engineers!

Twitter @barrywills

A chance encounter in Lanzarote

Barbara and I are on our annual winter break in the Canary Islands, this year on the volcanic island of Lanzarote. As well as relaxing for 10 days I am also starting to think of preparation of an article on the challenges of metal recycling, something which we will hear much about at Sustainable Minerals '18 in June.

So it was ironic that, while strolling along the Playa Blanca seafront this morning we should bump into an old student of mine, Mark Wolle, who graduated in mineral processing from CSM in 1978. Born and raised in our home town of Falmouth, Mark is CEO of E3 Recycling Ltd in Port Talbot, Wales, which specialises in WEEE, computer recycling and PC disposals.

Always a hands-on mineral processor, Mark told me of some of the practical problems of recycling metals and plastics from WEEE using standard mineral processing machinery, such as DMS and shaking tables. Although there are marked density differences between metals and plastics, one of the major problems is associated with the irregular shapes of pulverised particles, but the company is about to commission a new plant which they hope will overcome many of the hurdles.

Sustainable Minerals '16 Conference Diary

This was the 4th in the series of conferences previously known as Sustainability, Resource Conservation and Recycling (SRCR), and was held at the St. Michael's Hotel Falmouth, Cornwall, immediately following Biohydromet '16 at the same venue. The 2-day event was sponsored by Genesys International, Zeiss and Outotec, with media partners Industrial Minerals and International Mining. MEI consultant was Prof. Markus Reuter, Director of the Helmholtz Institute Freiberg for Resource Technology, Germany.

Thursday June 23rd

I opened the conference this morning, welcoming the 48 delegates from 15 countries.

We have been priviledged to recruit a very eminent keynote speaker to start the conference. Prof. Robin Batterham, Kernot Professor of Engineering at the University of Melbourne, was, until recently, Group Chief Scientist, Rio Tinto Limited, President of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering and Chairman of the International Energy Agency Expert Group on Science for Energy. Robin was Chief Scientist to the Australian Federal Government from 1999 to 2005. His keynote lecture "The mine of the future - even more sustainable" showed how sustainability is something that is ever important but not necessarily easy to progress. His presentation reflected his own sustainability journey of many years with a focus on the massive changes seen in the mining industry. Despite all the progress, many would see sustainable mining as an impossibility and this issue was addressed head on. He stressed that we will need mining for at least the next 50 years so we may as well be as sustainable as possible. The realities are that moving to higher levels of sustainability requires dedicated leadership, an understanding of the four pillars of sustainability and, interestingly, a willingness to take risks and innovate. He concluded by saying that mining in the future would be much different than today, and to a large extent invisible, with increased use of in-situ leaching of a wide range of minerals.

Despite the economic downturn in the mining industry, technological innovations and emerging technologies are becoming increasingly available for rapid mineralogical and textural analysis of rock samples and drill core. Accurate mineralogical identification and systematic documentation can enhance deposit knowledge across the mining chain. From the earliest stages of mine-life, accurate mineralogical identification can also enhance environmental characterisation which traditionally utilises a range of wet chemical tests to predict acid generation and acid neutralisation. An enhanced understanding of both the ore and gangue mineralogy allows accurate prediction of the geoenvironmental characteristics of future waste materials. Nathan Fox of the University of Tasmania, Australia, presented examples of hyperspectral data for acid neutralisation capacity domaining from volcanic hosted massive sulphide and porphyry deposits.



Nathan Fox, with his wife Anita Parbhakar-Fox (centre) and Elaine Govender-Opitz

Cornish company Petrolab Ltd is a sponsor of MEI's next conference, Process Mineralogy '17, and Chris Brough showed how liberation analysis by automated environmental mineralogy can be used in the simulation of accelerated weathering, in order to predict, via humidity cell testwork, the long-term behaviour of future mine waste material.

Chris Brough with Fannie Lessard, Fernanda Vilasbôas and Stoyan Gaydardzhiev

Resource efficiency is a policy concept that aims to maximize the supply of resource materials that can be drawn from a mineral resource with minimum waste production. It has become one of the major policy concepts to enable responsible development in mining. Following the coffee break Sebastian Spuerk, of RWTH Aachen University, Germany introduced a new method for multi-criteria evaluation of resource efficiency in mining operations and measures that consider intensities in land, water, energy and mineral deposit consumption. These resource intensities have been assessed for over twenty major copper mines.

Sebastian Spuerk (2nd right) with Tobias Braun, Bernd Lottermoser and Hao Ma

The use of metals is growing exponentially and Theo Henckens, of Utrecht University, The Netherlands asked whether this continuing growth of metal usage is sustainable in the long term. He concluded that the extraction of eight metal ores should be reduced by more than 50% compared to the present extraction rate in order to be sustainable.

Mining legacies are often dominated by large waste facilities and their associated environmental impact: heavy metals and acid leakage via acid mine drainage. Interestingly, the toxicity of this leakage is partly due to the presence of valuable metals in the waste deposits and this paper shows that there is only a thin line between waste and ore. Eleonore Lebre of the Sustainable Minerals Institute, University of Queensland, Australia, discussed sustainable practices in the management of mining waste, focusing on prevention.
The coal processing industry in South Africa produces large tonnages of ultrafine waste each year, which poses a local pollution risk and represents a loss of coal resources. Sue Harrison, of the University of Cape Town (UCT), presented an environmental performance assessment of froth flotation for coal recovery and sulfur removal from fine coal waste.

With the South African delegates, six from UCT: Palesa Diale, Alexander Opitz, Rob Huddy, Sue Harrison, me,
Mali Manono (of Vaal University of Technology), Dee Bradshaw and Elaine Govender-Opitz

Acid rock drainage poses a severe environmental risk, contributing to the non-sustainable nature of mining activities. While the quantification of the “worst case” risk for acid generation is relatively quick and inexpensive, investigating the time-frame of onset of acid generation and the potential for metal deportment and elevated salinity levels necessitate extended experimental durations of months to years. In a further paper from University of Cape Town, Alex Opitz described a study highlighting the effectiveness of using sequential chemical extraction geochemistry tests to identify the deleterious elements within a gold waste sample which has the potential for environmental risk. Furthermore, the amalgamation of test results with detailed sample mineralogy allows for identification of the host minerals and the potential conditions under which the identified environmental risk may be realised. The ability to gain this information over a short time period will inform the development of ARD mitigation and treatment strategies.

Conference consultant Markus Reuter, of Helmholtz Institute for Resource Technology, Germany, discussed how the EU has recently adopted an ambitious Circular Economy (CE) package. This CE plan covers the whole cycle from production and consumption to waste management and the market for secondary raw materials. The action plan aims at "closing the loop" of product lifecycles through greater recycling and re-use, and envisages bringing benefits for both the environment and the economy. Recycling forms the heart of the CE system. Ultimately all products will have to be recycled at their End-of-Life (EoL). For these reasons, finding ways to maximise the recovery of materials from EoL products while at the same time lowering the environmental footprint of our collective existence and therefore lowering greenhouse gas emissions is a vital priority to a CE.

Anna Kaksonen and Rosa Verburg during the lunch break

Following the lunch break, Sue Harrison, of the University of Cape Town, explored the opportunities for soil-related applications of fine coal processing wastes in South Africa, where it is estimated that the coal processing industry produces more than 14 million tons of fine coal waste per year. As society moves towards a circular economy with a closed resources cycle, the importance of re-using and re-purposing large volume wastes is becoming increasingly recognised, and Sue discussed the potential applications of fine coal waste as raw material for constructed soils or as an additive to existing soils in the South African context.

Rare earth elements are used in a range of renewable energy technologies, from wind turbines, to batteries, catalysts and electric cars, improving the performance and efficiency of these technologies. There are a range of geological settings that can form economic deposits of rare earth elements, and these have widely varying properties. To date there has been limited quantitative data comparing the environmental performance of these deposits during the exploration, construction and mining stages, through to the physical and chemical beneficiation, and the processing steps. Robert Pell, of the University of Exeter, UK, showed how a Life Cycle Assessment approach allows for a direct comparison between deposit types at each stage of the life cycle, highlighting differences and indicating whether sourcing rare earth elements from certain deposit types is innately more environmentally friendly.

Robert Pell (right) with Courtney Young and Kristine Pedersen

While mineral resources are not given explicit mention in the United Nations` Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), they are important in underpinning many of the targets. Minerals are vital to sustainable development, as both providers of the material infrastructure of society and as an important sector of the economy in many resource-rich nations. Ben McLellan, of Kyoto University, Japan, examined the historical and future mineral requirements and implications for sustainable development in scenarios that aim to achieve the SDG`s targets.

Ben McLellan with Guzide Kalyoncu Erguler and Eleonore Lebre

Genesys International Ltd, UK is a new entry into the MEI fold, and we welcome their sponsorship of the conference. Genesys is an industry leader in the development and manufacture of speciality antiscalant and cleaning chemicals for Reverse Osmosis, Nano-Filtration and Ultra-Filtration membrane systems (posting of 14th March). Membrane technology has become widely used in various industries in recent years, but has been slow to be adopted in the ever conservative mining industry. One of the main advantages of membrane technology is that it works without the addition of chemicals and with relatively low energy use. Stephen Chesters of Genesys identified over 300 mines with potential to use membrane technology. There are sixty-one operational membrane plants and fifty-one of these have been commissioned in the last ten years, 65% of which are in gold and copper mines. In precious metal mines, waste water can be concentrated using membrane plant so additional metals can be recovered from barren liquor. Acid mine drainage is increasingly treated and then reused or sent off site as a potable supply to the surrounding communities.

Waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), including spent batteries, contain significant quantities of metals that can be recycled. Naomi Boxall, of Australia's CSIRO, described a study aimed at developing a novel process for recovering metals from spent lithium ion batteries using electrochemically produced acidic anolyte.

Acid mine drainage (AMD) is often treated using active lime treatment, which generates a significant amount of sludge that contains mainly metal hydroxide precipitates, gypsum, and unreacted lime. Previous work has shown that sludge may have interesting geotechnical and geochemical properties, to be used, in combination with a silty soil, as a part of covers (oxygen barriers) to prevent AMD generation from waste rocks and tailings impoundments. In the final paper of the day Isabelle Demers, of Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue, Canada, showed that the reuse of sludge can reduce the volume of natural soil required for site reclamation and that the soil-sludge mixture is an efficient oxygen barrier.

Isabelle Demers with Tobias Braun and Mostafa Benzaazoua

Following coffee, the usual coast path walk took us to a special evening at the Chain Locker pub in old Falmouth, where we were joined by the regulars of the monthly Cornish Mining Sundowner (more photos on posting of 23rd June).

Overlooking the Fal estuary

At the gates of the 16th century Pendennis Castle

Relaxing at the Chain Locker pub

Friday June 24th

We awoke this morning to a country polarised by the EU Referendum result, and there was a sombre mood at the conference, as most scientists appreciated the advantages of remaining in Europe. To say that interesting times are ahead is very much an understatement.

Mike Battersby of Maelgwyn Mineral Services Ltd, UK, is a familiar face at MEI Conferences, and as a Director of the Coalition for Eco-Efficient Comminution (CEEC) it was a pleasure to invite him to give a keynote lecture to start off the final day. Mineral processing consumes up to 50% of the electrical energy on a mine site and optimised energy use is crucial to sustainable mineral processing. The CEEC has initiated a global study to benchmark comminution energy consumption across different mine sites that guaranteed anonymity of this comprehensive and previously undocumented mine-specific data. The comminution energy per unit metal produced is benchmarked and presented in a graphical form similar to a cost curve. The energy curve highlights the benefits of efficient energy utilisation as a cost saving by moving “down the curve” into more cost-efficient operating regimes. Application of the curves to sustainability in mineral processing were presented in Mike's talk, together with case studies.

Mike Battersby (centre) with MEI's Amanda and Jon Wills

The end-of-life (EoL) electric and electronic equipment (EEE) or e-waste has been a problem for almost two decades. The global rates for formal e-waste treatment are estimated to be below the 20% mark, with the majority of EoL devices still ending up in landfills or processed in a rudimentary way, causing serious environmental and human health issues. A paper from Glen Corder of the Sustainable Minerals Institute, University of Queensland, Australia, critically reviewed the existing situation with e-waste in Australia. An investigation into material content in e-waste shows that metals account for about 50 wt%, with the major value associated with steel (41%), gold (23%), copper (19%), and aluminium (7%) which is over USD400 million in total.

Glen Corder (right) and Markus Reuter

In Kvalsund, Northern Norway, a permit for submarine mine tailings disposal in the fjord, Repparfjorden was recently issued for a copper mine with expected operation from 2019. A copper mine was active in the same area in the 1970s and also deposited mine tailings in the fjord. Investigations of the metal binding in the historic and new mine tailings (produced from bedrock in the area) has been undertaken in a study described by Kristine Pedersen of Akvaplan-niva AS, Norway, which indicates that there is potential for extracting more Cu from the new mine tailings.

As acid mine drainage is such a severe environmental problem, Guzide Kalyoncu Erguler of the Mineral Research & Exploration General Directorate, Turkey, argued that, in order to provide sufficient representative data for developing restoration techniques, this time-dependent geochemical process should be investigated based on kinetic principles.

The oxidation reactions of some sulphide mineral mixtures can generate self-heating which, if not controlled, can lead to workplace disruptions, creation of hazardous environments, and potential risk to infrastructure and human safety. Effectively reducing or delaying the oxidation process is one approach for dealing with these risks. In the first paper after the coffee break, Frank Rosenblum, of McGill University, Canada, discussed a study which focused on identifying and testing chemical treatments which have the potential to supress or block the chemical reactions which lead to self-heating.

Frank Rosenblum (right) with Dee Bradshaw and Kristian Waters

The use of selective comminution is often an essential requirement for pre-concentration processes, as early upstream separation has proved to be most efficient. Stoyan Gaydardzhiev showed how comparative comminution tests involving classical shredding and Electro Dynamic Fragmentation (EDF) technology have been carried out with the aim of evaluating the liberation degree of EoL printed wiring boards. Grinding by shredder did not bring selective fragmentation in the sense that the fractures induced in the material showed virtually no correlation with the underlying texture. A natural tendency towards liberation along material boundaries is more pronounced when EDF is applied with the purpose of delaminating the multi-level structures.

Movement of raw materials can be one of the most challenging tasks in open pit mining, with truck transportation representing the largest factor in mining costs and resulting in major greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In a study presented by Tobias Braun of RWTH Aachen University, Germany, the transportation methods of bulk materials within German hard-rock open pit mines were investigated. The results showed that 90% of the operations use truck-based transportation methods, with the remainder relying partly or completely on continuous conveyor-based systems. The installation of continuous conveyors compared to trucks represents a real alternative because of reduced dead load, increased safety, reduced GHG emissions and in many cases even reduced costs. Thus, sustainable technology substitutions exist for in-pit haulage in quarries that are yet to be adopted by the German quarrying industry.

Slags produced from copper smelting are siliceous containing valuable metals such as Cu and Fe as well as deleterious elements such as As and Sb. Courtney Young, of Montana Tech, USA, described a carbothermal recovery process which has been developed to separate the valuables from the silicates thereby producing value-added products and simultaneously reducing environmental concerns.

Raglan mine ore is treated for beneficiation of Ni using the flotation process. The concentrator produces acid generating tailings containing pyrrhotite closely-coupled to a serpentine gangue. Tailings are filtered before deposition at the surface with the objective of integrating the material in the permafrost. Mostafa Benzaazoua of Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue, Canada, showed how partial desulphurization of total tailings produced at the end-circuit was investigated to assess the option of using desulphurized material as a component of a cover to control AMD generation. The effectiveness of the cover was the subject of one of the conference's associated poster presentations.

The mining industry is globally criticized for generating large amounts of solid wastes often with a potential environmental impact. Yassine Taha, of Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue, Canada, presented the first paper of the final session, with a study on the recycling into clay bricks of different types of mine wastes, from calamine processing, coal and phosphates industries.

Yassine Taha (right) with Palesa Diale and Naomi Boxall

Process water from mineral processing plants may contain a significant amount of dissolved metal ions, which may be recycled as process water, or discharged into the environment as effluent. If they are discharged into the environment they may cause significant problems for the local flora and fauna. Hao Ma, of McGill University, Canada, described one method of removing metal ions from aqueous systems which has generated considerable interest over recent years, the emulsion liquid membrane technique, which incorporates solvent extraction and stripping.

Gold mining had a prominent place in the South African economy for over 120 years and its fall in production and imminent resource exhaustion has come with extensive environmental problems. The disruption of land to allow for extraction of valuable minerals has caused hydrological pollution side-effects such as acid mine drainage (AMD). Palesa Diale, of the University of the Witwatersrand, showed that iron (Fe (II)) was found to be the most dominant dissolved heavy metal in the West Witwatersrand Basin where extensive gold mining takes place. Effective removal of Fe (II) will be important in controlling the consequence AMD contaminating water streams. Indigenous microalgae is a potential long term, sustainable and environmentally friendly remediation solution, due to its significant influence on AMD. It not only can actively remove toxic heavy metals from contaminated water streams and improve its pH levels, but also non-toxic sludge is not formed. The study therefore looked at the efficacy of using immobilized green microalgae (Desmodesmus sp.) with the key focus on the mechanism, equilibrium and kinetics in achieving the removal of Fe (II) from aqueous solutions.

The most common acid rock drainage (ARD) remediation strategies result in neutralization of the waste water, precipitation of the majority of heavy metals and the reduction of the sulphate load. However, the residual sulphate concentration still exceeds the discharge specifications. In a further paper from South Africa, Rob Huddy, of the University of Cape Town, discussed the biological sulphate reduction process as an alternative and potentially more sustainable option to reduce the high sulphate load, precipitate heavy metals and neutralise the treated ARD effluents.

Rob Huddy (2nd right) with Phil Morton, Danny Procter and Lewis Baker

A significant portion of the electrical and electronic waste (WEEE) generated is disposed into landfill sites or incinerated. Considering the annual 5% increase in global ewaste production projected from 41.8 million tonnes in 2014, the extraction and recovery of valuable metals from WEEE is necessary to contribute to the circular economy while minimizing the environmental burden. In the final paper of the conference, Elaine Govender-Opitz, of the University of Cape Town, showed that biohydrometallurgy can play a key role in the recovery of base metals from WEEE and its preparation for further recovery of gold and PGMs.

Elaine's presentation concluded what has been a fine conference. University of Cape Town's Prof. Dee Bradshaw felt that the quality of young person's presentations had been outstanding, which gave her great hope for the future.

MEI Consultant Markus Reuter summarised what had been achieved over the two days and what should be discussed at the next conference, emphasising the strengthening link between this and the preceding Biohydrometallurgy conference. More details on this will be published in a few weeks' time.

MEI's Amanda Wills then closed the conference, thanking the sponsors, and all delegates, particularly the chairmen and presenters (see timetable), and then invited everyone to Sustainable Minerals '18, which is hoped to be held in Windhoek, Namibia, in June 2018 in conjunction with Biohydromet '18.

The conference draft papers are available from MEI and authors have been invited to submit their final papers to Minerals Engineering, for a special Sustainable Minerals issue which will be published early next year. A full set of conference photos is also available from MEI.

Twitter @barrywills

First Announcement- Sustainable Minerals '16

In closing last month's SRCR '14 conference, Outotec's Markus Reuter stressed that minerals are at the centre of sustainability. The aim of the Sustainable Minerals (formerly SRCR) series of conferences has been to transfer the rich source of mineral processing knowledge accumulated over the years to a wider community dealing with waste processing and utilisation, recycling etc.

Some of the delegates at SRCR '14, Falmouth

We would now like to invite scientists of all related disciplines to join us in Falmouth in June 2016 for Sustainable Minerals '16, which will immediately follow Biohydromet '16 at the same venue, the St. Michael's Hotel. There will be discounted rates for those attending both conferences.

As with all MEI Conferences, the papers presented at the meeting will form the basis of a special peer-reviewed issue of Minerals Engineering. Regular updates on the progress of the conference will be published on the conference website and on Twitter (#SustainableMinerals16 @barrywills).

You should plan ahead and try to spend a few days in Cornwall after the conference. There is much to see and do in this beautiful part of the world, as can be seen in the Cornwall section of the blog.

River Fal, Falmouth

MEI's consultant to Sustainable Minerals '16 will, as always, be Prof. Markus Reuter of Outotec, Finland, who is also Adjunct Professor at Aalto University, Finland, Professorial Fellow at the University of Melbourne and a Guest Professor at the Central South University, China. He is co-author of the very recently published Handbook of Recycling, which discusses the multifaceted field of metal and materials recycling, reuse and reclamation in one compact volume, uniquely synthesizing industrial application alongside policy and economic implications.

SRCR '14 Provisional Programme Published

The rapid growth of the world economy is straining the sustainable use of the Earth’s natural resources, due to modern society’s extensive use of metals, materials and products. An astute and conscious application and use of metals, materials and products supported by the reuse and recycling of these materials and end-of-life products is imperative to the preservation of the Earth’s resources. 

MEI's 3rd International Symposium on Sustainability through Resource Conservation and Recycling '14 (SRCR '14) will discuss all aspects of material and metal usage in a 2-day event containing over 40 papers from authors representing 18 countries, including a keynote lecture by Prof. Markus Reuter, of Finland's Outotec, on the opportunities, limits and infrastructure of metal recycling.

It will be a great week in Falmouth, as SRCR '14 immediately follows Biohydromet '14 at the same venue.

SRCR '11 delegates in Falmouth

 

Metal recycling : Opportunities, Limits, Infrastructure

This will be the theme of the keynote lecture at MEI’s Sustainability through Resource Conservation and Recycling (SRCR ’14) conference in Falmouth next year. It will be given by Prof. Markus Reuter, of Outotec Oyj, and Aalto University, Finland. The keynote will summarise the UNEP report on Metal Recycling (UNEP 2013) and will discuss the depth and detail that is required to systemically fully understand resource efficiency in the context of material use in especially complex products.

Metals are an essential and critical component of today’s society: a moment’s reflection on their ubiquitous presence in virtually all energy and material production processes, products, infrastructure, confirms this. Metals play a key role in enabling sustainability through societies various high-tech applications. However, the resources of our planet are limited, as is the strain to which we can subject it in terms of emissions, pollution, and disposal of waste. For these reasons, Prof. Reuter will show how ways to lower the environmental footprint of our collective existence and therefore lowering greenhouse gas emissions and help mitigate climate change is a vital priority.

SRCR ’14 will discuss all aspects of metal and material usage (see the full scope) and will be run back to back with Biohydromet ’14 at the same venue. If you would like to present a paper at either of these conferences, abstracts should be submitted by the end of December.

Adaptation of mineral processing techniques for recycling of lithium-ion and nickel metal hydride batteries

Production of lithium-ion (LiBs) and nickel metal hydride (NiMH) batteries is expected to increase rapidly due to the soaring price of oil and gas, which increases interest in renewable energy, as well as the introduction of hybrid vehicles and electric vehicles which use such batteries as an effective energy storage device (see also the posting of 20 June 2011).

Development of an efficient recycling scheme to recover the valuable parts and safely dispose the harmful ones at the end life of the batteries is a necessity. The challenge, however, is how to recover all the valuable metals without sacrificing the economics of the recycling process.

Several LiBs and NiMH battery recycling processes have been developed in recent years. A review of these processes and their development has been presented in a recently published paper in Minerals Engineering, which has become the 3rd highest downloaded paper over the past 3 months, highlighting the intense interest in recycling.

It was found that the major drawback of these recycling processes is the loss of some of the valuable battery parts, as the techniques were not originally developed for these types of batteries. Also, some of these processes are expensive and designed for specific types of batteries which ignore contamination of the recycling stream with impurities and other battery types.

Using mineral processing operations such as grinding, screening, magnetic, electrostatic, and gravity separations to liberate the electrodal materials and to concentrate valuable metals is a critical step in any recycling process. The review showed that applying these processes reduces the volume of LiBs and NiMH scrap, liberates their valuables, reduces the need for leachate purification in hydrometallurgical processes, and facilitates decomposition of the battery electrolyte. Based on these results a flowsheet to recycle mixed stream LiBs and NiMH battery scrap has been proposed.