Morecovery  

Modular recovery process services for hydrometallurgy and water treatment

Morecovery is a metal and mineral recovery service in lab and/or pilot scale that allows organizations in the raw materials extractive industry to assess if their solid and liquid side streams are worth recovering metals and minerals from.

The need for raw materials, especially Rare Earth Elements (REE), is increasing rapidly in EU and globally. At the same time, the amount of extractive waste is increasing drastically together with concerns related to the environmental effects of mining. Mining industry can achieve more eco-efficient and selective raw material production by enhancing the utilization of side streams and mine waste. This development highlights the need to develop more efficient recovery methods and to efficiently remove dissolved metals from mine water streams, while securing the surrounding environment and ecosystem.

The main objective of the Morecovery project is to enhance the eco-efficient and sustainable use of natural resources through creating a modular recovery process service package for hydrometallurgy and water treatment. The project aims to demonstrate that the modular pilot plant with selective metal recovery processes will work on larger scale at target sites. Also, the organic adsorbents will be tested for efficient applications in semi-passive drainage water treatment and REE and base metal recovery.

After this project, the water treatment pilot plant will be up-scaled and proved to work in larger scale process and adsorbent testing at hydrometallurgical process sites, widening significantly the current business opportunities. Organic adsorbents, e.g. biochars will be proved to be efficient in large scale hydrometallurgical processes and mine waste drainage treatment, becoming useful part of the side stream utilization and circular economy. The metal recovery processes at target sites will be enhanced in critical raw materials recovery.

The modular recovery process service package including lab-scale services and a mobile pilot plant will be a powerful tool in developing utilization and cleaning of mining side streams.

The Morecovery project started in the beginning of 2019 and will continue until the end of 2021. The project is coordinated by the Geological Survey of Finland (GTK), and the partners include the University of Eastern Finland (UEF), Savonia University of Applied Sciences, LTU Business AB, Finnish Minerals Group Oy, Keliber Oy, the Spanish Council of Research (CSIC) and the University of Huelva (UHU). The main funding is provided by the European Union through the EIT Raw Materials.

Sitemap |