Application of LCA in Mining and Minerals Processing – Current Programs and Noticeable Gaps

Stewart, Mary; Holt, P.J.A.; Rouwette, Rob

doi:10.1002/9781118528372.ch12

Cited by 4 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 2 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…In the latest ecoinvent database v3.3, for instance, only two off-site tailing treatment processes (one for sulfidic and the other for non-sulfidic tailing) were defined and used to model tailings management of most metal mine operations worldwide, regardless of differences in site-specific ore quality or characteristics of tailings. Moreover, the generic ecotoxicity impact assessment in LCA was typically based on ecological risk assessment models, assuming that toxic materials degrade over time (Stewart et al, 2012). This assumption is not applicable to metals, since metals will not degrade.…”

Section: Lca Of Metal Leaching From Tailingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparative life cycle assessment of tailings management and energy scenarios for a copper ore mine: A case study in Northern Norway

Song

Pettersen

Pedersen

et al. 2017

Journal of Cleaner Production

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In support of continuous environmental improvement in the mining industry, it is important to systematically assess the environmental impacts of mining and mineral processing operations from a life cycle perspective. Although life cycle assessment (LCA) is widely used as an environmental systems analysis tool, the application of LCA in the mining industry is still in progress. This paper carried out a cradle-to-gate LCA of an underground copper ore mine planned in Northern Norway. Based on the ReCiPe midpoint (hierarchist) life cycle impact assessment method, results of the study showed that on-site electricity use, diesel for mining trucks and blasting dominated contributions across six, four and four, respectively, of the eighteen categories assessed, and metals leaching from tailings were the primary contributors to the human toxicity and marine ecotoxicity impacts. Compared to the baseline, results of the energy-oriented scenario analysis indicated that electrification of diesel-driven mining trucks would be more environmentally beneficial as long as across impact categories. While electrodialytic tailings remediation could extract up to 64% of copper in tailings prior to disposal and significantly reduce 2 the human toxicity impact of tailings, the marine ecotoxicity impact of tailings after electrodialysis changed inconsistently across the ReCiPe hierarchist and egalitarian perspectives. It is recommended to further assess the trade-off between the benefits of electrodialytic tailings remediation (extracting more copper) and the potential impacts of deposited tailings after electrodialysis from a multi-criteria decision-analysis perspective. In a generic context, this study provides an insight in further promoting LCA as an environmental decision-support tool, especially for comparing available cleaner production options, improving the overall environmental performance of a mine, and facilitating better communication with stakeholders.

show abstract

Section: Lca Of Metal Leaching From Tailingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparative life cycle assessment of tailings management and energy scenarios for a copper ore mine: A case study in Northern Norway

Song

Pettersen

Pedersen

et al. 2017

Journal of Cleaner Production

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In a broader context, the criticality assessment concepts by Graedel, , Cimprich et al, and Bach et al translate qualitative criteria into criticality scores by assessing environmental implications, supply risk, vulnerability to supply restriction, and socioeconomic dimensions. Official public databases, such as pollutant release and transfer registers (PRTR), record pollutants released to the environment, but with a varying level of detail depending on the specific requirements of local environmental authorities. − Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a standardized approach to assess the processes’ impacts throughout the entire metal value chain. , However, with respect to tailing emissions, many LCA studies fail to report the inventories due to lack of methods, data limitations, and unrealistic data collection efforts. , This persisting issue has been discussed and worked around by other researchers in the LCA field by applying a waste-specific transfer coefficient model that was initially developed for landfill emissions . When specific mine data are available, one could also build the inventories for the current conditions as demonstrated by others. − While this might provide tailing details for sites operating under similar conditions, the major shortcoming is that the inventories are based on averaged data in multiple locations to represent specific mining production.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…26,27 However, with respect to tailing emissions, many LCA studies fail to report the inventories due to lack of methods, data limitations, and unrealistic data collection efforts. 28,29 This persisting issue has been discussed 30 and worked around by other researchers in the LCA field by applying a waste-specific transfer coefficient model 31 that was initially developed for landfill emissions. 32 When specific mine data are available, one could also build the inventories for the current conditions as demonstrated by others.…”

Section: ■ Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Regionalized Life Cycle Inventories of Global Sulfidic Copper Tailings

Adrianto

Pfister

Hellweg

2022

Environ. Sci. Technol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Worldwide, an issue of copper production is the generation of mine waste with varying characteristics. This waste can pollute natural environments, and in particular, the heavy metal emissions of the tailings may pose long-term consequences. Currently, life cycle assessments of mine tailings are hampered by both limited data availability in the metal production value chain and lack of appropriate methodologies. We collect data from 431 active copper mine sites using a combination of information available from the market research and technical handbooks to develop site-specific life cycle inventories for disposal of tailings. The approach considers the influences of copper ore composition and local hydrology for dynamically estimating leached metals of tailings at each site. The analysis reveals that together, copper tailings from the large (i.e., porphyry) and medium-size copper deposits (i.e., volcanogenic massive sulfide and sediment-hosted) contribute to more than three quarters of the total global freshwater ecotoxicity impacts of copper tailings. This strongly correlates with hydrological conditions, leading to high infiltration rates. The generated inventories vary locally, even within single countries, showcasing the importance of site-specific models. Our study provides site-specific, dynamic emission models and thus improves the accuracy of tailing’s inventories and toxicity-related impacts.

show abstract

“…Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a methodology that accounts for the environmental impacts associated with products and processes along the lifecycle of a material. In the mining industry, LCA has been utilized extensively, − and its application to understand the environmental implications of phytoaccumulation; and to highlight the related potential for opportunities of metal recovery from mine tailings, have been previously proposed . Recently, LCA has been applied for nickel phytomining .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Toward Financially Viable Phytoextraction and Production of Plant-Based Palladium Catalysts

Harumain

Parker

García

et al. 2017

Environ. Sci. Technol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Although a promising technique, phytoextraction has yet to see significant commercialization. Major limitations include metal uptake rates and subsequent processing costs. However, it has been shown that liquid-culture-grown Arabidopsis can take up and store palladium as nanoparticles. The processed plant biomass has catalytic activity comparable to that of commercially available catalysts, creating a product of higher value than extracted bulk metal. We demonstrate that the minimum level of palladium in Arabidopsis dried tissues for catalytic activity comparable to commercially available 3% palladium-on-carbon catalysts was achieved from dried plant biomass containing between 12 and 18 g·kg Pd. To advance this technology, species suitable for in-the-field application: mustard, miscanthus, and 16 willow species and cultivars, were tested. These species were able to grow, and take up, palladium from both synthetic and mine-sourced tailings. Although levels of palladium accumulation in field-suitable species are below that required for commercially available 3% palladium-on-carbon catalysts, this study both sets the target, and is a step toward, the development of field-suitable species that concentrate catalytically active levels of palladium. Life cycle assessment on the phytomining approaches described here indicates that the use of plants to accumulate palladium for industrial applications has the potential to decrease the overall environmental impacts associated with extracting palladium using present-day mining processes.

show abstract

Application of LCA in Mining and Minerals Processing – Current Programs and Noticeable Gaps

Cited by 4 publications

References 2 publications

Comparative life cycle assessment of tailings management and energy scenarios for a copper ore mine: A case study in Northern Norway

Comparative life cycle assessment of tailings management and energy scenarios for a copper ore mine: A case study in Northern Norway

Regionalized Life Cycle Inventories of Global Sulfidic Copper Tailings

Toward Financially Viable Phytoextraction and Production of Plant-Based Palladium Catalysts

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About