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In situ recovery of resources from waste repositories

从废物储存库就地回收资源

基本信息

批准号：
NE/L013983/1
负责人：
Timothy Bugg
金额：
$ 31.01万
依托单位：
University of Warwick
依托单位国家：
英国
项目类别：
Research Grant
财政年份：
2014
资助国家：
英国
起止时间：
2014 至无数据
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=NE%2FL013983%2F1
关键词：
situ recovery resources waste repositories

项目摘要

Having historically disposed of vast quantities of industrial, municipal, metallurgical and mining waste into the ground, societies have put into geological storage an enormous amount of resources in a range of materials of value such as metals and energy (in the form of biomass and polymers). Therefore, instead of considering these waste repositories to be a legacy waste issue and a long-term liability, a paradigm shift is required to view these installations as "resource hubs" for future recovery. The proposed research aims to contribute towards the development of a new and exciting research field related to resource recovery from existing waste repositories and seeks to address the following central question: Can resources, specifically elements of value (e.g. Au, Pd, Ag, Cu, Pb, Zn, Co, Ni, Sn and Cr), 'E-tech' elements used in clean energy and other environmental applications (e.g. neodymium and other rare earth elements) and energy (through enhanced methane generation) be recovered by leaching and other treatments whilst the material lies in situ, thus avoiding the need to actively mine the material and thereby minimising ecological and environmental impacts?The fundamental geoscience research question that underpins this is:How can we understand and manipulate the in situ biogeochemistry of the waste within the geological repository to recover resource?The rationale behind the research is to examine new technologies for resource recovery with a lower environmental impact than active ('dig and process') mining of wastes, or of virgin ores.The concept and technology of in situ leaching has been developed in the mining industry for recovery of uranium and copper, and is done by circulating solutions to extract the elements and/or stimulating and enhancing microbial leaching. The possibility of transferring this concept for application to recovery of resource from waste repositories has not been fully addressed previously. Wastes display diverse compositions, mineralogies and textures very different to that of ores and thus will require new science to understand and develop leaching methods to solubilise valuable components.We will consider resource extraction from the full range of wastes currently in UK waste repositories including industrial and commercial waste (anticipated to be metal-rich), incinerator and fuel ash, mineral wastes and municipal wastes to examine the idea of in situ leaching. We are particularly keen to identify during the grant which types of landfilled waste streams might be relatively enriched in certain resources and focus the research on recovery from these wastes as a starting point. We envisage that in situ leaching could sidestep many of the problems that prevent realisation of the resource potential of waste repositories, with important impacts not only in the UK but internationally. Furthermore, our aim is to not only investigate means to recover resource through in situ leaching but to also investigate how we can appropriately benchmark such processes (which we anticipate may have substantially lower environmental and human health impacts) in terms of life-cycle, human health and ecosystems service costs as well as public opinion for comparison to retrieval of landfilled resources by 'conventional' dig-and-process landfill mining and against conventional mining of the same resources. This aims to provide evidence to demonstrate not only that the techniques are technically feasible but that they offer reduced impact compared to conventional technologies, are acceptable to stakeholders and thus are a feasible and appropriate approach to future management of wastes.

在历史上，社会将大量的工业、城市、冶金和采矿废物处理到地下，并将大量的资源以金属和能源（以生物质和聚合物的形式）等一系列有价值的材料的形式投入地质储存。因此，不应将这些废物储存库视为遗留废物问题和长期责任，而应转变模式，将这些设施视为未来恢复的“资源中心”。拟议的研究旨在促进发展一个新的和令人兴奋的研究领域，与现有废物储存库的资源回收有关，并寻求解决以下中心问题：资源，特别是价值要素（例如Au、Pd、Ag、Cu、Pb、Zn、Co、Ni、Sn和Cr），用于清洁能源和其他环境应用的“电子技术”元素（如钕和其他稀土元素）和能源（通过提高甲烷生成量）在材料处于原位时通过沥滤和其他处理方法回收，从而避免需要积极开采材料，从而最大限度地减少对生态和环境的影响？支撑这一点的基本地球科学研究问题是：我们如何理解和操纵地质处置库内废物的原位地球化学以回收资源？这项研究的基本原理是审查新的资源回收技术，这种技术对环境的影响低于对废物或原生矿石的积极（“挖掘和加工”）开采，采矿业为回收铀和铜开发了原地浸出的概念和技术，通过循环溶液来提取元素和/或刺激和加强微生物浸出。将这一概念应用于从废物处置库回收资源的可能性以前没有得到充分的讨论。废物的成分、矿物学和质地与矿石大不相同，因此需要新的科学来理解和开发浸出方法，以溶解有价值的成分。我们将考虑从目前英国废物储存库中的各种废物（包括工业和商业废物）中提取资源（预计富含金属）、焚化炉和燃料灰、矿物废物和城市废物，以审查原地浸析的想法。我们特别希望在批出拨款时，找出哪类堆填废物流的某些资源可能较丰富，并集中研究如何从这些废物中回收，作为研究的起点。我们设想，原地浸出可以回避许多问题，防止实现废物处置库的资源潜力，不仅在英国，但国际上具有重要影响。此外，我们的目标不仅是研究通过原地浸出回收资源的方法，而且还研究如何适当地对此类过程进行基准测试（我们预计其对环境和人类健康的影响可能会大大降低），人类健康和生态系统服务成本以及公众舆论，以比较“传统”挖掘和垃圾填埋法开采和传统开采同样的资源。其目的是提供证据，证明这些技术不仅在技术上是可行的，而且与传统技术相比，它们的影响较小，为利益攸关方所接受，因此是未来废物管理的可行和适当的方法。