Last May, the follow-up meeting of the European ION4RAW project corresponding to month 48 of development was held. The objective of the project is the development of an innovative and sustainable mineral processing, 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, which was held in person for the first time since the pandemic, 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, in addition to showing the progress in the different work packages of the project (mineralogical analysis, sustainability, leaching of the metals of interest and their recovery), took the opportunity of discussing the remaining steps for the final part of the project, focusing mainly on the upscaling of the processes to the pilot level.
In this sense, LUREDERRA exposed the collaborations that are being carried out within the development of Work Package 6 (the scaling process), with a view to improving the filtration processes of excess solids and the optimization of the chemical route for the recovery of metals of interest (Bismuth, mainly).
Thus, this meeting was very effective to share different points of view on the scaling process of the final system, implying a great boost this final task, establishing the next steps to be taken for the correct development of this phase, which is of great interest for the final accomplishment of the project.