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J. Antrekowitsch and G. Hanke
– strict environmental legislations
– strict safety regulations
– complicate approval and permission procedures
– lack of new or improved processing concepts that might be able to compensate for
the above difficulties.
Of course, European citizens must be happy to live in a region of the world with
highest safety and environment standards but it also has to be realized that this
contributes to a missing competitiveness with countries in Africa or Asia. With this,
many of European raw materials are treated outside Europe, which ultimately cannot
be the strategy for the future.
In this context, a relatively new metal source, industrial by-products, has to be
discussed asking the question if they could represent an interesting raw material for
Europe.
By-products
For many decades, residues from metal production, such as slags, dust, and sludge,
have often been qualified as waste that was simply dumped. This fact was—at least at
that time—accepted by industry and involved authorities. Except for metal-producing
companies, no market participant really recognized that metal-bearing wastes were
often landfilled to an amount that was more or less as high as the metal production
itself. In the eighties and nineties of the last century, first environmental concerns
triggered more attention on such dumps and residues. Nevertheless, due to missing
technologies and low metal prices the interest in processing residues to recover
valuables was still very low.
During the past few years, multi-metal recovery from concentrates has been developed for both, primary ores and secondary materials. In addition, minor metals contained in such residues became important for daily life in industry. In other words,
metals that did not have a real value in the past nowadays may essentially contribute
to the economic viability when recovered from residues.
In combination with increased metal prices and the need for special and rare metals
in various highly sophisticated technologies (e.g. the electronics industry), more
attention must be paid to such residues which often represent a potential secondary
resource. Currently, recycling rates are still low and huge amounts of residues are
dumped annually.
Recycling is mainly based on scraps, where the elements in focus are available as
pure metals.
However, scraps have a defined volumetric limit and their treatment is already
optimized to a certain level. As a matter of fact, recycling rates must be improved in
the near future considering continuously dropping grades in primary ores, implying
that new sources need to be exploited as described above.
J. Antrekowitsch and G. Hanke
– strict environmental legislations
– strict safety regulations
– complicate approval and permission procedures
– lack of new or improved processing concepts that might be able to compensate for
the above difficulties.
Of course, European citizens must be happy to live in a region of the world with
highest safety and environment standards but it also has to be realized that this
contributes to a missing competitiveness with countries in Africa or Asia. With this,
many of European raw materials are treated outside Europe, which ultimately cannot
be the strategy for the future.
In this context, a relatively new metal source, industrial by-products, has to be
discussed asking the question if they could represent an interesting raw material for
Europe.
By-products
For many decades, residues from metal production, such as slags, dust, and sludge,
have often been qualified as waste that was simply dumped. This fact was—at least at
that time—accepted by industry and involved authorities. Except for metal-producing
companies, no market participant really recognized that metal-bearing wastes were
often landfilled to an amount that was more or less as high as the metal production
itself. In the eighties and nineties of the last century, first environmental concerns
triggered more attention on such dumps and residues. Nevertheless, due to missing
technologies and low metal prices the interest in processing residues to recover
valuables was still very low.
During the past few years, multi-metal recovery from concentrates has been developed for both, primary ores and secondary materials. In addition, minor metals contained in such residues became important for daily life in industry. In other words,
metals that did not have a real value in the past nowadays may essentially contribute
to the economic viability when recovered from residues.
In combination with increased metal prices and the need for special and rare metals
in various highly sophisticated technologies (e.g. the electronics industry), more
attention must be paid to such residues which often represent a potential secondary
resource. Currently, recycling rates are still low and huge amounts of residues are
dumped annually.
Recycling is mainly based on scraps, where the elements in focus are available as
pure metals.
However, scraps have a defined volumetric limit and their treatment is already
optimized to a certain level. As a matter of fact, recycling rates must be improved in
the near future considering continuously dropping grades in primary ores, implying
that new sources need to be exploited as described above.