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REWAS 2016 pp 179–185Cite as

Life Cycle Assessment of Metallurgical Processes Based on Physical Flowsheet Models

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Abstract

Simulation combined with Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) can be used to quantify the environmental impact of metals production processes. The results for different processing options, as well as the effect of having the same plant at different locations can be evaluated and compared. HSC SIM 8, which is linked with GaBi, or other LCA software can be used to carry out this work. The material flows are calculated using HSC SIM, and they are then converted to environmental indicators. The refining of silver using the High Current Density (HCD) electrorefining process is used as an example in this paper in order to show the link between simulation software and LCA.

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References

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Outotec (Finland) Oy, Kuparitie 10, FI-28101, Pori, Finland

    Madeleine Scheidema & Antti Roine

  2. Helmholtz Institute Freiberg for Resource Technology, Halsbrücker Straße 34, 09599, Freiberg, Germany

    Markus Reuter

Authors
  1. Madeleine Scheidema
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  2. Markus Reuter
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  3. Antti Roine
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department Materials Engineering of KU Leuven, Belgium

    Bart Blanpain (full professor, co-director for the I/UCRC ‘Center for Resource Recovery and Recycling’, co-editor-in-chief for the Journal of Sustainable Metallurgy) (full professor, co-director for the I/UCRC ‘Center for Resource Recovery and Recycling’, co-editor-in-chief for the Journal of Sustainable Metallurgy)

  2. Umicore Precious Metals Refining, Hoboken, Belgium

    Christina Meskers (senior manager and leading the Market Intelligence and Business Research team) (senior manager and leading the Market Intelligence and Business Research team)

  3. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, MIT, USA

    Elsa Olivetti (Thomas Lord Assistant Professor) (Thomas Lord Assistant Professor)

  4. Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), USA

    Diran Apelian (Alcoa-Howmet Professor of Engineering and Founding Director of the Metal Processing Institute (MPI) & Brajendra Mishra (Kenneth G. Merriam Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Assoc. Director of the Metal Processing Institute, Director of the National Science Foundation’s Industry/University Collaborative Research Center on Resource Recovery & Recycling) (Alcoa-Howmet Professor of Engineering and Founding Director of the Metal Processing Institute (MPI) &  (Kenneth G. Merriam Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Assoc. Director of the Metal Processing Institute, Director of the National Science Foundation’s Industry/University Collaborative Research Center on Resource Recovery & Recycling)

  5. Purdue University, USA

    John Howarter (assistant professor in materials engineering) (assistant professor in materials engineering)

  6. SINTEF, Norway

    Anne Kvithyld (senior research scientist) (senior research scientist)

  7. IND LLC, USA

    Neale R. Neelameggham (‘The Guru’) (‘The Guru’)

  8. Argonne National Laboratory, USA

    Jeff Spangenberger (engineering specialist, Sr) (engineering specialist, Sr)

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© 2016 TMS (The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society)

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Scheidema, M., Reuter, M., Roine, A. (2016). Life Cycle Assessment of Metallurgical Processes Based on Physical Flowsheet Models. In: Kirchain, R.E., et al. REWAS 2016. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-48768-7_26

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