Energy-Saving Green Technologies in the Mining and Mineral Processing Industry

Pyrometallurgy and hydrometallurgy are the two main processes to recover valuable metals from ore and secondary resources. While pyrometallurgy uses high temperatures to extract metals, in hydrometallurgy, an aqueous solution is used to extract metals from mineral resources. As a result, hydrometallurgical techniques are considered to be energy-saving technologies in the mining and mineral processing industry. This paper will address how energy can be reduced to extract metals in the mining and mineral processing industries with an emphasis on the extraction of base metals such as zinc and copper. Our novel techniques can even reduce more energy than what is currently consumed in the conventional hydrometallurgical copper electrowinning processes. Those energy-saving and sustainable green technologies would help meet the NetZero target in the mining and mineral processing industries.