Improve Resource Efficiency and Minimize Environmental Footprint – REMINE

2015 – Sustainable Supply of Raw Materials in Europe (2014-12-17 – 2015-05-20)

General partners

  • Luleå University of Technology, Sweden , LTU , Project leader
  • University of Porto – Engineering Faculty, Portugalia, UP
  • Research and Development National Institute for Metals and Radioactive Resources, Romania, INCDMRR

Summary:

The global demand for metals and minerals is growing rapidly; Europe has a huge trade deficit for metallic minerals, and therefore needs to extract more of its own resources to reduce this dependence. The occurrence of valuable minerals and metals in historical mine waste can in many cases constitute a risk for the environment, but can also be a resource of critical materials. The project vision is to “clean up” historical mine sites by extracting critical metals and separating minerals, thereby minimizing the amount of harmful mine waste.The project is divided into five work packages; project administration by Luleå University of Technology (WP1), detailed characterization and risk assessment of the mine wastes (WP2), identification of new processing methods (WP3), characterisation and risk assessment of the remaining residues (WP4), outlining of business opportunities and a conceptual model for sustainable mining (WP5). The project has study sites from Portugal, Romania and Sweden. Owner of the sites are associated to the project and will contribute with their expertise of the sites, provide access to areas, attend in project meetings and continuously take part of the results during the project. The result is expected to lead to finding of new resources, new recycling technologies related to environmental risks, business opportunity and education of undergraduate and graduate students.

 

WP 1. Project Management

Work Package leader: LTU

  • Task 1.1: Operational project management
  • Task 1.2: Administrative and financial management
  • Task 1.3: Legal management
  • Task 1.4: Reporting

WP 2. Source characterization

Work Package leader: INCDMRR

  • Task 2.1: Sampling campaigns of mine wastes
  • Task 2.2: Characterization of tailing minerals
  • Task 2.3: Leaching tests
  • Task 2.4: Mobility of elements and weathering of minerals

WP 3 Mine waste processing

Work Package leader: INCDMRR

  • Task 3.1: Mine waste/tailings preparation
  • Task 3.2: Physical separation processes
  • Task 3.3: Hydrometallurgical processes

The 3th REMinE project meeting

WP 4: Waste/residue management

Work Package leader: LTU

  • Task 4.1: Chemical and mineralogical characterization
  • Task 4.2: Risk evaluation
  • Task 4.3: Numerical/Analytical modeling of tailings safety state before and after their exploiting
  • Task 4.4: Wastes as resource

WP 5: Multi-objective system analysis

Work Package leader: UP

  • Task 5.1: Criteria definition
  • Task 5.2: Problem Analysis and Constraints
  • Task 5.3: Logical design and Multi-criteria Decision