Abstract
The mining industry comprising extraction, mineral processing, and metallurgical processing is capital, water, and energy intensive with potential for significant environmental impacts, if the environmental aspects are not properly managed. In order to be sustainable, industry needs to carefully address all of these aspects. Addressing these aspects starts at the conceptual stage and continues through bench-scale testing, pilot plant testing, commercial demonstration, and ultimately commercial operation. Opportunities for resource, energy, and water conservation need to be evaluated. Measures that would be required for the control of emissions, effluents, and the management of wastes need to be assessed. In addition, industrial hygiene and safety requirements for the protection of the health of workers need to be studied. Finally, the community needs to be engaged throughout the process development cycle by informing them regarding the new process being developed, its benefits, and how environmental impacts will be avoided or mitigated and then soliciting their views regarding their concerns and addressing them. These considerations are discussed with illustrative examples drawn from the primary copper industry and a checklist is provided to determine whether these elements have been adequately addressed.
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Parameswaran, K. (2016). Sustainability Considerations in Innovative Process Development. In: Lakshmanan, V., Roy, R., Ramachandran, V. (eds) Innovative Process Development in Metallurgical Industry. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21599-0_13
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21599-0_13
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