Mineral processing simulation based-environmental life cycle assessment for rare earth project development: A case study on the Songwe Hill project.

Clicks: 212
ID: 42105
2019
Article Quality & Performance Metrics
Overall Quality
Not rated
Combines reader engagement with the AI quality analysis. This article has not been analysed, so there is no overall score — reader engagement is measured and shown alongside.
AI Quality Assessment
Not analyzed
Readership in this journal
Steady

Ranked #228 of 276 articles by views in Journal of environmental management

Most read Least read

Bar heights use a square-root scale. Only the 120 most-read articles are drawn; the journal has 276 in total.

Mint this article as an NFT
Not yet minted

Create a permanent, verifiable on-chain record of this article on the Scimatic Network. The NFT is held in your Journament account, and you can withdraw it to your own wallet at any time.

5 SUSD one-off · no wallet required
Sign in to mint
Abstract
Rare earth elements (REE), including neodymium, praseodymium, and dysprosium are used in a range of low-carbon technologies, such as electric vehicles and wind turbines, and demand for these REE is forecast to grow. This study demonstrates that a process simulation-based life cycle assessment (LCA) carried out at the early stages of a REE project, such as at the pre-feasibility stage, can inform subsequent decision making during the development of the project and help reduce its environmental impacts. As new REE supply chains are established and new mines are opened. It is important that the environmental consequences of different production options are examined in a life cycle context in order that the environment footprint of these raw materials is kept as low as possible. Here, we present a cradle-to-gate and process simulation-based life cycle assessment (LCA) for a potential new supply of REE at Songwe Hill in Malawi. We examine different project options including energy selection and a comparison of on-site acid regeneration versus virgin acid consumption which were being considered for the project. The LCA results show that the global warming potential of producing 1 kg of rare earth oxide (REO) from Songwe Hill is between 17 and 87 kg CO-eq. A scenario that combines on-site acid regeneration with off-peak hydroelectric and photovoltaic energy gives the lowest global warming potential and performs well in other impact categories. This approach can equally well be applied to all other types of ore deposits and should be considered as a routine addition to all pre-feasibility studies.
Reference Key
pell2019mineraljournal Use this key to autocite in the manuscript while using SciMatic Manuscript Manager or Thesis Manager
Authors Pell, Robert;Wall, Frances;Yan, Xiaoyu;Li, Jinhui;Zeng, Xianlai;
Journal Journal of environmental management
Year 2019
DOI
S0301-4797(19)31062-X
URL
Keywords Keywords not found

Citations

No citations found. To add a citation, contact the admin at info@scimatic.org

Comments

No comments yet. Be the first to comment on this article.