Remining for Renewable Energy Metals: A Review of Characterization Needs, Resource Estimates, and Potential Environmental Effects

Liberation, defined as the availability of the metal or mineral of interest for processing, is another important factor that will help to determine the most effective type of beneficiation and processing and the value or grade of the orebody. [...] Sampling and Characterization Efforts for Remined Materials Potential remining projects must begin with an estimate of the total amount and type of waste and collection of samples from the “deposit” to determine the concentrations or percentages of metals of interest. [...] The program will determine the number and location of mine waste sites, how much material is available that may contain critical minerals, the tonnage and grade of the mate- rial, and the geological, geochemical, and mineralogical characteristics that may influence the recovery of the commodities of interest and environmental impacts. [...] Despite these limitations, estimates of the mass of mine waste and the total amount of renewable energy metals in the wastes can provide a rough idea of the potential for mine wastes to serve as important sources of metals for the new energy economy. [...] Using the values in Table 3 for Mn, Ni, and Co, and assuming that 50% of the reported metal compound is the metal of interest, the totals for these metals would be 26,320 tonnes of Mn, 2987 tonnes of Ni, and 432 tonnes of Co in a single year (Figure 2).