- Email: [email protected]
Special Edition on MMME06
Minerals Engineering 20 (2007) 819–821 This article is also available online at: www.elsevier.com/locate/mineng
Foreword
Special Edition on MMME06
Arguably the steel (also aluminium) industry has gone the furthest down the path of closing the material cycle since large steel companies operate in many of the sectors of the steel cycle as shown in the figure below1. The most significant steel companies mine ore, produce steel, engage in product design (e.g. in the car industry, consumer goods), recycle steel ca. 50% (this number will rise significantly in future) and are committed to reduce environmental impacts in all facets of the cycle. These companies are for example involved in large European projects such as ULCOS (a project for lowering CO2 emissions per ton of hot metal) and SuperLightCar (EU project on the design a super light car for energy efficiency and recyclability) to
1
Reuter, M.A. and Van Schaik A. (2007): Sustainable Steel, Stahl und Eisen 127 (4), 93–97 – plenary lecture at 40th IISI meeting in Buenos Aires, 2006. 0892-6875/$ - see front matter Ó 2007 Published by Elsevier Ltd. doi:10.1016/j.mineng.2007.03.015
improve environmental performance of steel production and consumer products. It is this cyclic thinking that will assist these visionary companies within the Minerals and Metals industry to improve environmental performance and be able to mimic nature’s sustainable cyclic ecological systems; hence optimize material and energy use within the total cycle; hence not concentrate on optimizing just one aspect e.g. mining. The sponsors of the MMME06 conference viz. Arcelor-Mittal, CSense, Hatch, New Boliden and Umicore count towards these visionary companies and have a true commitment to achieving sustainability in the metals and minerals industry in its larger context. They make this special edition of Minerals Engineering possible.
820
Foreword / Minerals Engineering 20 (2007) 819–821
This special edition summarizes the conference that had as a theme the various aspects depicted by the above figure i.e. touching its cyclic nature as well as discussing the technology that facilitates the closure of the cycle i.e. recycle as well as metallurgical process technology. Also the minimization and end-of-pipe treatment of residues were discussed as well as the overall measurement of environmental impact of the complete system. This conference achieved bringing together a new mix of disciplines, unusual for a typical minerals engineering conference, reflecting all aspects of the above figure. For example, members from the life cycle assessment and environmental database community (EMPA (Switzerland); and PE Europe and University of Stuttgart (both Germany)) attended as did delegates from the metallurgical recycling community (Boliden (Sweden), Umicore (Belgium)). Also plant designers such as HATCH (Australia/South Africa) and Outokumpu (Finland/Germany) discussed issues surrounding sustainability while CSense (South Africa) discussed process control and its link to sustainability. Various members from the international academic community provided their insight and tools to describe the complex systems in minerals and metals processing. This special edition of the conference is divided into two sections, viz. one section considering the bigger picture of sustainability (i.e. the complete cycle) and system design and the second section the technology aspects of recycling and (industrial) waste processing. Some papers in each of these sections will be discussed to provide some overview of this conference; submitted papers have been reviewed and some have been accepted for this special edition. The cycle: sustainability and system design The plenary lecture was given by Prof. Reuter on behalf of Prof. Theo Lehner (Chief Metallurgist, Boliden Mineral AB and Lulea University of Technology, Sweden) ‘‘On the wise production and use of metals’’. As usual Prof. Lehner’s presentations are provocative and at the same time giving the key issues surrounding the sustainable use of metals and recycling. Following this plenary talk, Philip Bangerter (Hatch Associates, Australia) presented a very interesting framework for determining the sustainable nature of a company and how to integrate sustainability into the design process of metallurgical plants. Hatch is probably the first metallurgical engineering company adopting such an approach. Australia has initiated various research activities in sustainability through various research centres. Dick van Beers (Curtin University of Technology, Australia) discussed local synergies in the Australian minerals industry while Dr. Stevan Green (CEO, Centre for Sustainable Resource Processing, Australia) discussed the CRC for Sustainable minerals situated in Perth. A number of papers followed considering the modelling of recycling systems e.g. Dynamic, long term optimisation of the coal-electricity supply chain: an agent analysis for
industrial ecology by Dr. B. Cohen (University of Cape Town, South Africa), Exergy as a tool for evaluation of the resource efficiency of recycling systems by Ms. Olga Ignatenko (Ph.D. student Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands), Reducing the environmental impacts of metal cycles: copper in the USA by Dr. Damien Giurco (Institute for Sustainable Futures, Australia) and Prof. Jim Petrie (University of Sydney, Australia). If these environmental models are to change the way we do business they should link to the way we design and run our daily businesses. Some papers touched on these issues e.g. the development of a new a methodology to translate identified ELV’s treatment limits into requirements for automotive design feedback by Prof. Daniel D. Froelich (ENSAM de Chambe´ry, France – work done for Renault), the use of fuzzy set models to link product design, recycling and environment by Dr. Antoinette van Schaik (Delft Technical University, The Netherlands – work done within a large consortium by the European Auto industry), digital visual simulation for design of mineral and metal recycling processes and of secondary products by Prof. Richard Williams (University of Leeds, UK – important work to identify scrap, recyclates and other particulate materials) and active and passive gangue: a framework for mineral extraction, disposal and finance by Jan Cilliers (Imperial College London, UK). Without good environmental data and environmental data analysis tools it will not be able to communicate environmental impact. Papers from organizations that are world leading in this field were presented e.g. From product to material analysis – challenges, chances and limits of LCA by Dr. Julia Pflieger (University of Stuttgart, Germany), Energy Efficiency Analysis (EEA) as baseline study for Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and Joint Implementation (JI) on the example of the steel industry by Dr. Johannes Gediga (PE Europe GmbH, Germany) and The role of alloying constituents in ecological valuation of metals by Dr. M. Classen (EMPA – Materials Science and Technology, Switzerland). Without process control all these models cannot be implemented on processing plants. CSense Systems (South Africa) presented a paper ‘‘Rapid emission troubleshooting from coking plants’’. Technology: recycling and industrial/post-consumer waste processing Without state of the art technology strategically situated within the complete material cycle, recycling will not be economically achieved and hence the sustainable use of metals and materials will not be reached. Dr. Michiel Verhelst (Umicore Precious Metals Refining, Belgium) discussed in the paper ‘‘The art of sustainable precious metals recycling’’ the state-of-the-art of precious metal recycling. This is an example of how it should be done and to which heights any company should strive for in future! Following this paper Dr. Andreas Orth (Outokumpu Technology
Foreword / Minerals Engineering 20 (2007) 819–821
GmbH, Germany) discussed Low CO2-emission technologies for iron and steelmaking as well as titanium slag production. This company has for many years been a leading-edge technology provider to the minerals and metals processing industries as this paper once again demonstrated. Physical recycling technology is crucial for providing recyclates of sufficient economic value. Prof. Daniel Froelich (ENSAM de Chambe´ry, France) discussed State of the art of plastic sorting and recycling: feedback to vehicle design (summary of Renault project) while Prof. Kari Heiskanen (Helsinki University of Technology, Finland) discuss the measurement of multidimensional separability curves from shredded consumer goods. Two Ph.D. students discussed their projects i.e. ‘‘Investigating the use of vertical vibration to recover recyclable materials’’ by Ms. N. Mohabuth (University of Nottingham, UK) and Ms. Christa Meskers (Technical University of Delft, The Netherlands) evaluated the recycling of coated magnesium using exergy analysis. Prevention is a key to reaching sustainability, however in many cases end-of-pipe applications are still required to clean inevitable end-of-pipe streams of processes, the problem posed to us by thermodynamics’ second law! The following papers summarize a few of these applications presented at the conference (i) Waste yeast for cost reduction of precious metal recovery from aqueous wastewaters by Ms. Mack (Rhodes University, South Africa), (ii) Recycling of waste pickle acid by precipitation of metal ˚ .C. Rasmuson ¨ sterdahl and A fluoride hydrates by K.M. O (Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden), (iii) Treatment of an acid mine drainage through a ferrite formation process in central Hokkaido, Japan by S.P. Herrera (Hokkaido University, Japan), Y. Ochi (Ataka Construction & Engineering, Japan), N. Iyatomi (Nittetsu Mining Co., Japan), and S. Nagae (Japan Oil, Gas & Metals Corp., Japan), (iv) Reduction of arsenic leaching from various rocks by controlling geochemical conditions by T. Igarashi, T. et al. (Hokkaido University, Japan), and H. Imagawa (Nippon Mining & Chemicals Co. Ltd., Japan) and (v) Compared biosorption studies of cadmium and zinc removal with rhodocococus opacus for environmental applications by T.G.P. Va´squez, B.A.E. Casas, M.L. Torem and L.M.S. Mesquita (Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil). This two-day conference was attended by 45 delegates from Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Finland, France, India, Iran, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland and UK. The 30 oral papers were presented in the usual mono-session format of MEI conferences, which
821
permits the optimal exchange of ideas during the discussion after the presented papers, in front of posters; and during teas and lunches. It is perhaps the preferred manner in which to run such new multi-discipline conferences, which break new ground by bringing together people from very different backgrounds and academic cultures and ‘‘languages’’. We trust that this conference has created a multi-disciplinary vehicle through which the minerals and metals industry will be supported in its quest for ‘‘sustainability’’ by creating the new tools that will aid the industry in future. Above all we believe the conference’s most significant contribution is the exchange of ideas, learning the language of each other and harmonizing all the disciplines represented at this event. This is of future crucial benefit to the minerals industry. The Guest Editors Prof. Markus Reuter and Prof. Kari Heiskanen have arranged from the accepted peerreviewed papers this special Edition of Minerals Engineering that best colours in the material and metal cycle as shown above. This is perhaps the first really truly multi-disciplinary conference in minerals processing, most certainly the first edition of Minerals Engineering with such a mix of papers and ideas. With this conference we the Guest Editors realized our ambition to discuss the ideas and philosophy of our book (Reuter M.A., Heiskanen, K., Boin, U., Van Schaik, A. et al. (2005). The Metrics of Material and Metal Ecology, Harmonizing the resource, technology and environmental cycles, Elsevier Science, Amsterdam, 706p. ISBN-13: 978-0-44451137-9) within the multi-disciplinary environment that MMME06 created. We thank the referees that helped us to review the submitted papers for this edition: Prof. Forsberg, Prof. Forse´n, Prof. Holappa, Prof. Hukkinen, Prof. Jalkanen, Prof. Koivo, Prof. Leisola, Assoc. Prof. Lewis, Dr. Mahlungu, Prof. Paatero, Prof. Petrie, Prof. Torem and Dr. van Schaik. Markus A. Reuter Chief Executive Technologist, Ausmelt Ltd., Australia and Honorary Professor, University of Melbourne, Australia Tel.: +61 3 9794 6200; fax: +61 3 9794 9411. E-mail address: [email protected] Kari Heiskanen Professor of Minerals Processing, Helsinki University of Technology, Finland Available online 22 May 2007
Foreword
Special Edition on MMME06
Arguably the steel (also aluminium) industry has gone the furthest down the path of closing the material cycle since large steel companies operate in many of the sectors of the steel cycle as shown in the figure below1. The most significant steel companies mine ore, produce steel, engage in product design (e.g. in the car industry, consumer goods), recycle steel ca. 50% (this number will rise significantly in future) and are committed to reduce environmental impacts in all facets of the cycle. These companies are for example involved in large European projects such as ULCOS (a project for lowering CO2 emissions per ton of hot metal) and SuperLightCar (EU project on the design a super light car for energy efficiency and recyclability) to
1
Reuter, M.A. and Van Schaik A. (2007): Sustainable Steel, Stahl und Eisen 127 (4), 93–97 – plenary lecture at 40th IISI meeting in Buenos Aires, 2006. 0892-6875/$ - see front matter Ó 2007 Published by Elsevier Ltd. doi:10.1016/j.mineng.2007.03.015
improve environmental performance of steel production and consumer products. It is this cyclic thinking that will assist these visionary companies within the Minerals and Metals industry to improve environmental performance and be able to mimic nature’s sustainable cyclic ecological systems; hence optimize material and energy use within the total cycle; hence not concentrate on optimizing just one aspect e.g. mining. The sponsors of the MMME06 conference viz. Arcelor-Mittal, CSense, Hatch, New Boliden and Umicore count towards these visionary companies and have a true commitment to achieving sustainability in the metals and minerals industry in its larger context. They make this special edition of Minerals Engineering possible.
820
Foreword / Minerals Engineering 20 (2007) 819–821
This special edition summarizes the conference that had as a theme the various aspects depicted by the above figure i.e. touching its cyclic nature as well as discussing the technology that facilitates the closure of the cycle i.e. recycle as well as metallurgical process technology. Also the minimization and end-of-pipe treatment of residues were discussed as well as the overall measurement of environmental impact of the complete system. This conference achieved bringing together a new mix of disciplines, unusual for a typical minerals engineering conference, reflecting all aspects of the above figure. For example, members from the life cycle assessment and environmental database community (EMPA (Switzerland); and PE Europe and University of Stuttgart (both Germany)) attended as did delegates from the metallurgical recycling community (Boliden (Sweden), Umicore (Belgium)). Also plant designers such as HATCH (Australia/South Africa) and Outokumpu (Finland/Germany) discussed issues surrounding sustainability while CSense (South Africa) discussed process control and its link to sustainability. Various members from the international academic community provided their insight and tools to describe the complex systems in minerals and metals processing. This special edition of the conference is divided into two sections, viz. one section considering the bigger picture of sustainability (i.e. the complete cycle) and system design and the second section the technology aspects of recycling and (industrial) waste processing. Some papers in each of these sections will be discussed to provide some overview of this conference; submitted papers have been reviewed and some have been accepted for this special edition. The cycle: sustainability and system design The plenary lecture was given by Prof. Reuter on behalf of Prof. Theo Lehner (Chief Metallurgist, Boliden Mineral AB and Lulea University of Technology, Sweden) ‘‘On the wise production and use of metals’’. As usual Prof. Lehner’s presentations are provocative and at the same time giving the key issues surrounding the sustainable use of metals and recycling. Following this plenary talk, Philip Bangerter (Hatch Associates, Australia) presented a very interesting framework for determining the sustainable nature of a company and how to integrate sustainability into the design process of metallurgical plants. Hatch is probably the first metallurgical engineering company adopting such an approach. Australia has initiated various research activities in sustainability through various research centres. Dick van Beers (Curtin University of Technology, Australia) discussed local synergies in the Australian minerals industry while Dr. Stevan Green (CEO, Centre for Sustainable Resource Processing, Australia) discussed the CRC for Sustainable minerals situated in Perth. A number of papers followed considering the modelling of recycling systems e.g. Dynamic, long term optimisation of the coal-electricity supply chain: an agent analysis for
industrial ecology by Dr. B. Cohen (University of Cape Town, South Africa), Exergy as a tool for evaluation of the resource efficiency of recycling systems by Ms. Olga Ignatenko (Ph.D. student Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands), Reducing the environmental impacts of metal cycles: copper in the USA by Dr. Damien Giurco (Institute for Sustainable Futures, Australia) and Prof. Jim Petrie (University of Sydney, Australia). If these environmental models are to change the way we do business they should link to the way we design and run our daily businesses. Some papers touched on these issues e.g. the development of a new a methodology to translate identified ELV’s treatment limits into requirements for automotive design feedback by Prof. Daniel D. Froelich (ENSAM de Chambe´ry, France – work done for Renault), the use of fuzzy set models to link product design, recycling and environment by Dr. Antoinette van Schaik (Delft Technical University, The Netherlands – work done within a large consortium by the European Auto industry), digital visual simulation for design of mineral and metal recycling processes and of secondary products by Prof. Richard Williams (University of Leeds, UK – important work to identify scrap, recyclates and other particulate materials) and active and passive gangue: a framework for mineral extraction, disposal and finance by Jan Cilliers (Imperial College London, UK). Without good environmental data and environmental data analysis tools it will not be able to communicate environmental impact. Papers from organizations that are world leading in this field were presented e.g. From product to material analysis – challenges, chances and limits of LCA by Dr. Julia Pflieger (University of Stuttgart, Germany), Energy Efficiency Analysis (EEA) as baseline study for Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and Joint Implementation (JI) on the example of the steel industry by Dr. Johannes Gediga (PE Europe GmbH, Germany) and The role of alloying constituents in ecological valuation of metals by Dr. M. Classen (EMPA – Materials Science and Technology, Switzerland). Without process control all these models cannot be implemented on processing plants. CSense Systems (South Africa) presented a paper ‘‘Rapid emission troubleshooting from coking plants’’. Technology: recycling and industrial/post-consumer waste processing Without state of the art technology strategically situated within the complete material cycle, recycling will not be economically achieved and hence the sustainable use of metals and materials will not be reached. Dr. Michiel Verhelst (Umicore Precious Metals Refining, Belgium) discussed in the paper ‘‘The art of sustainable precious metals recycling’’ the state-of-the-art of precious metal recycling. This is an example of how it should be done and to which heights any company should strive for in future! Following this paper Dr. Andreas Orth (Outokumpu Technology
Foreword / Minerals Engineering 20 (2007) 819–821
GmbH, Germany) discussed Low CO2-emission technologies for iron and steelmaking as well as titanium slag production. This company has for many years been a leading-edge technology provider to the minerals and metals processing industries as this paper once again demonstrated. Physical recycling technology is crucial for providing recyclates of sufficient economic value. Prof. Daniel Froelich (ENSAM de Chambe´ry, France) discussed State of the art of plastic sorting and recycling: feedback to vehicle design (summary of Renault project) while Prof. Kari Heiskanen (Helsinki University of Technology, Finland) discuss the measurement of multidimensional separability curves from shredded consumer goods. Two Ph.D. students discussed their projects i.e. ‘‘Investigating the use of vertical vibration to recover recyclable materials’’ by Ms. N. Mohabuth (University of Nottingham, UK) and Ms. Christa Meskers (Technical University of Delft, The Netherlands) evaluated the recycling of coated magnesium using exergy analysis. Prevention is a key to reaching sustainability, however in many cases end-of-pipe applications are still required to clean inevitable end-of-pipe streams of processes, the problem posed to us by thermodynamics’ second law! The following papers summarize a few of these applications presented at the conference (i) Waste yeast for cost reduction of precious metal recovery from aqueous wastewaters by Ms. Mack (Rhodes University, South Africa), (ii) Recycling of waste pickle acid by precipitation of metal ˚ .C. Rasmuson ¨ sterdahl and A fluoride hydrates by K.M. O (Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden), (iii) Treatment of an acid mine drainage through a ferrite formation process in central Hokkaido, Japan by S.P. Herrera (Hokkaido University, Japan), Y. Ochi (Ataka Construction & Engineering, Japan), N. Iyatomi (Nittetsu Mining Co., Japan), and S. Nagae (Japan Oil, Gas & Metals Corp., Japan), (iv) Reduction of arsenic leaching from various rocks by controlling geochemical conditions by T. Igarashi, T. et al. (Hokkaido University, Japan), and H. Imagawa (Nippon Mining & Chemicals Co. Ltd., Japan) and (v) Compared biosorption studies of cadmium and zinc removal with rhodocococus opacus for environmental applications by T.G.P. Va´squez, B.A.E. Casas, M.L. Torem and L.M.S. Mesquita (Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil). This two-day conference was attended by 45 delegates from Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Finland, France, India, Iran, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland and UK. The 30 oral papers were presented in the usual mono-session format of MEI conferences, which
821
permits the optimal exchange of ideas during the discussion after the presented papers, in front of posters; and during teas and lunches. It is perhaps the preferred manner in which to run such new multi-discipline conferences, which break new ground by bringing together people from very different backgrounds and academic cultures and ‘‘languages’’. We trust that this conference has created a multi-disciplinary vehicle through which the minerals and metals industry will be supported in its quest for ‘‘sustainability’’ by creating the new tools that will aid the industry in future. Above all we believe the conference’s most significant contribution is the exchange of ideas, learning the language of each other and harmonizing all the disciplines represented at this event. This is of future crucial benefit to the minerals industry. The Guest Editors Prof. Markus Reuter and Prof. Kari Heiskanen have arranged from the accepted peerreviewed papers this special Edition of Minerals Engineering that best colours in the material and metal cycle as shown above. This is perhaps the first really truly multi-disciplinary conference in minerals processing, most certainly the first edition of Minerals Engineering with such a mix of papers and ideas. With this conference we the Guest Editors realized our ambition to discuss the ideas and philosophy of our book (Reuter M.A., Heiskanen, K., Boin, U., Van Schaik, A. et al. (2005). The Metrics of Material and Metal Ecology, Harmonizing the resource, technology and environmental cycles, Elsevier Science, Amsterdam, 706p. ISBN-13: 978-0-44451137-9) within the multi-disciplinary environment that MMME06 created. We thank the referees that helped us to review the submitted papers for this edition: Prof. Forsberg, Prof. Forse´n, Prof. Holappa, Prof. Hukkinen, Prof. Jalkanen, Prof. Koivo, Prof. Leisola, Assoc. Prof. Lewis, Dr. Mahlungu, Prof. Paatero, Prof. Petrie, Prof. Torem and Dr. van Schaik. Markus A. Reuter Chief Executive Technologist, Ausmelt Ltd., Australia and Honorary Professor, University of Melbourne, Australia Tel.: +61 3 9794 6200; fax: +61 3 9794 9411. E-mail address: [email protected] Kari Heiskanen Professor of Minerals Processing, Helsinki University of Technology, Finland Available online 22 May 2007