Life Cycle Assessment of Critical Raw Materials – an innovative flotation process

Froth flotation is an essential mineral separation technique. By making use of differences in surface properties between minerals, valuable particles are concentrated in large tanks by attaching to bubbles, which form a froth phase that overflows as a mineral-rich concentrate. However, current flotation technologies do not work adequately for fine particles, below 20 μm in size. This is a severe challenge at present, limiting the exploitation of deposits and proper recycling of end-of-life products containing Critical Raw Materials (CRMs). The FineFuture project, funded by the European Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 821265), will advance the fundamental understanding of fine particle flotation phenomena and it will lead to the development of ground-breaking technological solutions. After a literature review on current flotation Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) studies, the research faces the challenges of setting the system boundaries and the function of an innovative technology, as well as of defining a data collection procedure. A participatory approach involving the industrial partners of the project has been adopted to properly tackle these issues and to set-up the LCA. Four case studies have been identified covering different minerals (copper, manganese, magnesite), various sources (ores, tailings) and beneficiation process lines. For each case study, the future system with the FineFuture technology implemented will be compared against the traditional one. As part of the sustainability analysis, a social LCA will also be conducted. Thanks to the involvement of stakeholders, it has been possible to adequately select the categories, subcategories and indicators to be taken into consideration during the analysis.