Sustainable Minerals ’21

This, the 6th International Symposium on Sustainable Minerals (Sustainable Minerals '21), is the postponed Sustainable Minerals '20, which was affected by the Coronavirus outbreak. It is organised by MEI in consultation with Prof Markus Reuter and is sponsored by FLSmidth. Media sponsors are International Mining and the Coalition for Eco-Efficient Comminution (CEEC), the Cornwall Mining Alliance and the Critical Minerals Association are Industry Associates.

Due to COVID-19 the conference will be held online.

THEMES

The rapid growth of the world economy is straining the sustainable use of the Earth’s natural resources due to modern society’s extensive use of metals, materials and products. An astute and conscious application and use of metals, materials and products supported by the reuse and recycling of these materials and end-of-life products is imperative to the preservation of the Earth’s resources. The realisation of the ambitions of sustainable use of metals, materials and resources demands that the different disciplines of the material and consumer product system are connected and harmonised. This conference will discuss all aspects of material and metal usage by considering for example (but not exclusively):

• Acid Mine Drainage
• Clean Technology (smelting, energy recovery, hydrometallurgical, etc.)
• Coal Wastes
• Effluent Treatment (biological and chemical methods for water purification)
• Energy Recovery
• Water use and recycling
• Environmental Impact Assessment Methodologies (LCA, metrics for sustainability, LCI, etc.)
• Industrial Applications (novel technology, new methods, breakthrough technology, etc.)
• Legislation (REACH, Basel, Stockholm, etc.)
• Process Control (to monitor and optimize environmental performance of plants, unit operations, furnaces)
• Processing of Industrial Wastes (slags, chemical, flue dusts, sludges, bottom ashes, etc.)
• Recycling of Post Consumer Materials (car recycling, waste electric and electronic equipment, plastics, paper)
• Tailings Disposal at mine sites
• Recycling Systems (monitoring, take-back systems, etc.)
• Recycling Technology (separation, automatic sorting, sensors, smelting, etc.)
• Sustainability (from an industrial as well as consumer point of view)
• System and other models for system optimization and Sustainability prediction
• Carbon emission controls; case studies of existing methods to reduce emissions and new technology being developed such as carbon capture and storage
• Efforts to reduce energy consumption in mining and mineral processing operations
• Developments in geopolymers as alternatives to conventional cements.

Call for papers: Short abstracts, of no more than 150 words, should be emailed to Dr. Barry Wills in Rich Text Format (.rtf) by the end of March. Please ensure that your abstracts do not contain Figures, References, Tables or Equations.

The programme will be released closer to the time.