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  • Review Article
  • Published:

Towards sustainable extraction of technology materials through integrated approaches

Abstract

The transition to a low-carbon economy will be material-intensive. Production of these materials (from mining to manufacturing) incurs environmental costs that vary widely, depending on the geology, mineralogy, extraction routes, type of product, purity of product, background system or manufacturing infrastructure. Understanding the impacts of the raw materials underpinning the low-carbon economy is essential for eliminating any dissonance between the benefits of renewable technologies and the impacts associated with the production of the raw materials. In this Review, we propose an integrated life cycle assessment and geometallurgical approach to optimize the technical performance and reduce the environmental impact of raw material extraction. Life cycle assessments are an effective way of understanding the system-wide impacts associated with material production, from ore in the ground to a refined chemical product ready to be used in advanced technologies such as batteries. In the geometallurgy approach, geologists select exploration targets with resource characteristics that lend themselves to lower environmental impacts, often considering factors throughout the exploration and development process. Combining these two approaches allows for more accurate and dynamic optimization of technology materials resource efficiency, based on in situ ore properties and process simulations. By applying these approaches at the development phase of projects, a future low-carbon economy can be achieved that is built from ingredients with a lower environmental impact.

Key points

  • The 2020s will see substantial demand growth for lithium, cobalt, nickel, graphite, rare-earth elements, manganese, vanadium and other materials, due to the transition to renewable energy.

  • Production of battery grade or equivalent purity technology metals can have an extensive range of climate change and environmental impacts.

  • The impacts of technology material production are rooted in geology. Consideration of geology and mineralogy allows a better understanding of the main drivers for technical recovery (both gangue and ore), which influences the process routes needed to manufacture technology materials.

  • Different process routes have different environmental impacts, which can be quantified and compared using life cycle environmental impact methodologies.

  • Life cycle assessment can be used to uncover hotspots in the development phase for mitigation before new operations are built.

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Fig. 1: Examples of low-carbon technologies that require transition materials.
Fig. 2: The production phases for technology materials.
Fig. 3: Overview of the main geological deposit types for REEs, lithium, cobalt, nickel, graphite and manganese.
Fig. 4: Variations in life cycle assessment.
Fig. 5: Integrated LCA–geometallurgical approach.

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Acknowledgements

F.W. and X.Y. were part-funded by the UKRI Interdisciplinary Circular Economy Centre for Technology Metals (EP/V011855/1). Q.D. acknowledges the support from Business Finland funded BATTRACE project (grant no. 1019/31/2020). K.G.’s contribution was part-funded by NERC grant (NE/V006932/1) LiFT. K.G. publishes with the permission of the BGS Executive Director. The authors thank D. Teagle for their review and useful suggestions.

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R.P. wrote and edited the article. All other authors contributed equally to all aspects of the article.

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Glossary

Technology materials

Any material that is in demand, available and used for the purposes of furthering technology and engineered systems.

Carbon footprint

The amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere as a result of the activities of a product or process.

Life cycle assessment

(LCA). A methodology for assessing environmental impacts associated with all the stages of the life cycle of a commercial product, process or service.

Power trains

Mechanisms that transmit the drive from the engine of a vehicle to its axle.

Battery quality

A specification for chemical products, usually implying low impurity concentrations and adequate particle size distribution, that indicates that the product can be used to make advanced battery components.

Class 1 nickel

Refers to nickel products that have a nickel purity of a minimum of 99.8%.

Life cycle impact assessment

(LCIA). A methodology for converting inventory data from a life cycle assessment into a set of potential impacts.

Life cycle inventory

(LCI). Inventory of input and output flows for a product system such as water, energy and raw materials, and releases to air, land and water.

Geometallurgy

Combining geology or geostatistics with metallurgy (or, more specifically, extractive metallurgy) to create a spatially or geologically based predictive model for mineral processing plants.

CAPEX

Capital expenditures (CAPEX) that are major purchases a company makes, designed to be used in the long term.

OPEX

Operating expenses (OPEX) refer to day-to-day expenses that are incurred during business activities.

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Pell, R., Tijsseling, L., Goodenough, K. et al. Towards sustainable extraction of technology materials through integrated approaches. Nat Rev Earth Environ 2, 665–679 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-021-00211-6

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