Life cycle environmental assessment of the production of rare earth elements from gold processing

Bieda, Bogusław; Grzesik, Katarzyna; Kozakiewicz, Ryszard; Kossakowska, Karolina

doi:10.1109/ciem.2017.8120854

Cited by 2 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…If the key players, that is, regional blocs, governments, multinational companies, and regulators (on environmental and public health grounds and accountability), are to be seen as credible and in line with the key targets of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, then a fully-fledged framework of lifecycle sustainability assessments for REEs also needs to be developed and implemented. There is a range of studies on lifecycle assessments (LCAs) for (specific) REEs (and from specific sources and locations) available (see e.g., [92] for a recent systematic overview, and see [93,94]), but these are more narrowly focused on an at times limited set of environmental aspects (and typically also exclude human-health risks connected with toxicity), with differing underlying inventories and thus similar yet different outcomes (even when there are the same process chains). What they do not deliver is a more rounded sustainability assessment, which includes other corporate social responsibility (CSR) or now environmental, social, and governance (ESG) dimensions (which include labor conditions and work safety, for instance), or an economic one with a trend and regulatory context analysis with a view to over-or under-supply and the investment interfaces.…”

Section: Future Pathwaysmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding Rare Earth Elements as Critical Raw Materials

et al. 2023

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The boom in technological advances in recent decades has led to increased demand for rare earth elements (REEs) (also known as rare earth metals) across various industries with wide-ranging industrial applications, including in the clean energy sector, but with some environmental, economic, and social footprint concerns. This paper reviews the complexities of the production, consumption, and reuse or recovery of REEs, presenting current trends in terms of potentials and challenges associated with this. This paper in particular focuses on the supply, demand, and (environmental and economic) sustainability of REEs, as a subset of critical raw materials. It does so via a critical stocktaking of key discussions and debates in the field over the past 15 years up until now, through a thematic analysis of the published and gray (policy) literature with a grounded theory approach. The paper finds that carefully balanced lifecycle sustainability assessments are needed for assessing the respective dimensions of the extraction, processing, and reuse or recovery methods for different types of REE sources and supplies to meet current and future demands. It furthermore diagnoses the need for taking into account some shifts and substitutions among REEs also for reasons of cost and locational supplies for the security of supply. Finally, the paper provides some overall policy recommendations for addressing current problems, with a conceptual framing of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

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Section: Future Pathwaysmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding Rare Earth Elements as Critical Raw Materials

et al. 2023

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“…Another definition is that tailings are fine-grained, particulate solids consisting of ground rock slurry, water, and chemical residues that remain after the minerals or commercial elements have been removed from the ore [7]. Thus, mine tailings and associated accidents have been identified as one of the most dangerous environmental problems worldwide [8]. Therefore, they are controlled by the mining companies because when there is a problem related to them, they can generate a negative and harmful environmental impact, which can be both immediate and long-term [9].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Water Quality Analysis in Mantaro River, Peru, Before and After the Tailing’s Accident Using the Grey Clustering Method

Delgado¹,

Gil²,

Chullunquía³

et al. 2021

Int. J. Adv. Sci. Eng. Inf. Technol.

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Problems with environmental accidents are increasing worldwide, which generates great damage to the environment. In fact, in July 2019, a tailing spill occurred that flowed into the Mantaro River, contaminating it with thousands of liters of waste. This had environmental consequences and social ones since there were people for and against mining, which is the principal economic activity in the area. In this way, this study proposes to quantify the damage caused by the tailing spill using the grey clustering method, which is based on grey systems theory. For this purpose, two sampling points were chosen for data collection and evaluation both before and after the accident, which allowed to measure the impact of metal concentrations and other physical-chemical parameters caused by accident. The results obtained from the study revealed increases in the concentration levels of metals such as aluminum, arsenic, among others, in some cases very high that exceeded the maximum permitted limits. Such findings could help local and national government authorities, people living and transiting near the river, and activities related to the use of the water in this river; since the quality of the river water can be lethal if the necessary measures are not taken. In addition, the method used in this study showed to be very practical and efficient during its application. Finally, it is advised that future research investigate each point along the Mantaro River and show the areas where the disaster had the most impact to develop some mitigating techniques.

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Life cycle environmental assessment of the production of rare earth elements from gold processing

Cited by 2 publications

References 10 publications

Understanding Rare Earth Elements as Critical Raw Materials

Understanding Rare Earth Elements as Critical Raw Materials

Water Quality Analysis in Mantaro River, Peru, Before and After the Tailing’s Accident Using the Grey Clustering Method

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