Last November, the follow-up meeting of the European ION4RAW project corresponding to month 42 of development was held. The objective of the project is the development of an innovative and sustainable mineral processing technology, aimed at the recovery of mineral by-products of interest through the use of Deep Eutectic Solvents (DES), ionic liquids that allow the leaching of metal ions.
During the meeting, the partners that are part of the project consortium presented their results within the activities carried out in each of the work packages into which the project is divided. Thus, the partners showed the advances in mineralogy studies, in sustainability assessment, and also in the leaching methods of the metals of interest, as well as in their recovery through various techniques, such as electrochemistry or precipitation/extraction.
In this sense, LUREDERRA exposed the optimization of recovery processes by chemical routes to obtain the metals of interest. Specifically, a recovery route has been designed for Ag, Te, In and Bi, four of the elements of interest that are pursued with the development of the project. Thus, through stages of precipitation, decantation, extraction, etc., a great advance has been achieved for the correct development of the ION4RAW project.
Finally, it should be noted as a milestone within the project, that this meeting has meant the final launch of the last phase of the project: treatment and recovery on a larger scale. These actions, together with the optimizations that are necessary, will constitute the greatest workload for this last year.
