Opportunities for Mineral Carbonation in Australia’s Mining Industry

Mehdi Azadi, Mansour Edraki, Faezeh Farhang and Jiwhan Ahn
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Mehdi Azadi: Centre for Mined Land Rehabilitation, Sustainable Minerals Institute, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia
Mansour Edraki: Centre for Mined Land Rehabilitation, Sustainable Minerals Institute, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia
Faezeh Farhang: School of Chemical Engineering, University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW 2308, Australia
Jiwhan Ahn: Centre for Carbon Mineralisation, Climate Change Mitigation and Sustainability Division, Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources, Daejeon 34132, Korea

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 5, 1-21

Abstract: Carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) via mineral carbonation is an effective method for long-term storage of carbon dioxide and combating climate change. Implemented at a large-scale, it provides a viable solution to harvesting and storing the modern crisis of GHGs emissions. To date, technological and economic barriers have inhibited broad-scale utilisation of mineral carbonation at industrial scales. This paper outlines the mineral carbonation process; discusses drivers and barriers of mineral carbonation deployment in Australian mining; and, finally, proposes a unique approach to commercially viable CCUS within the Australian mining industry by integrating mine waste management with mine site rehabilitation, and leveraging relationships with local coal-fired power station. This paper discusses using alkaline mine and coal-fired power station waste (fly ash, red mud, and ultramafic mine tailings, i.e., nickel, diamond, PGE (platinum group elements), and legacy asbestos mine tailings) as the feedstock for CCUS to produce environmentally benign materials, which can be used in mine reclamation. Geographical proximity of mining operations, mining waste storage facilities and coal-fired power stations in Australia are identified; and possible synergies between them are discussed. This paper demonstrates that large-scale alkaline waste production and mine site reclamation can become integrated to mechanise CCUS. Furthermore, financial liabilities associated with such waste management and site reclamation could overcome many of the current economic setbacks of retrofitting CCUS in the mining industry. An improved approach to commercially viable climate change mitigation strategies available to the mining industry is reviewed in this paper.

Keywords: mineral carbonation; greenhouse gas (GHG) emission; climate change; Australian mining; mining waste; mine reclamation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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