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