platinum group metal, mine and concentration operations, UPR, ecoinvent 3.6, Undefined

Categories:
ISIC4 categories:
B:Mining and quarrying/07:Mining of metal ores/072:Mining of non-ferrous metal ores
Location:
ZA - South Africa
Reference year: 2015 - 2015
Description

Location: ZA - South Africa
This dataset represents data from four major platinum producing companies in South Africa Northam Platinum, Anglo American Platinum, Lonmin Platinum and Impala Platinum. Of the four only Anglo-American Platinum, Lonmin Platinum and Impala Platinum operate refineries. Platinum Group Metals (PGMs) is recovered through underground and open pit mining. The processing of the ore consists of concentration, smelting and refining.
PGM mining in South Africa is located in the Bushveld Complex, which includes three distinct mineral-bearing reefs: The Merensky Reef, The UG2 Reef and Platreef.
[This dataset is meant to replace the following datasets:]
Undefined unit processes (UPRs) are the unlinked, multi-product activity datasets that form the basis for all of the system models available in the ecoinvent database. This is the way the datasets are obtained and entered into the database by the data providers. These activity datasets are useful for investigating the environmental impacts of a specific activity (gate-to-gate), without regard to its upstream or downstream impacts.

Technology

The ores from the different ore bodies are processed in concentrators where a PGM concentrate is produced with a tailing by product. The PGM base metal concentrate product from the different concentrators processing the different ores are blended during the smelting phase to balance the sulphur content in the final matte product. Smelter operators also carry out toll smelting from third part concentrators. The smelter product is send to the Base metal refinery where the PGMs are separated from the Base Metals. Precious metal refinery is carried out on PGM concentrate from the Base metal refinery to split the PGMs into individual metal products.
Water analyses measurements for Anglo Platinum obtained from literature (Slatter et.al, 2009).
Mudd, G., 2010. Platinum group metals: a unique case study in the sustainability of mineral resources, in: The 4th International Platinum Conference, Platinum in Transition “Boom or Bust.”
Water share between MC and EC from Mudd (2010).
Mudd, G., 2010. Platinum group metals: a unique case study in the sustainability of mineral resources, in: The 4th International Platinum Conference, Platinum in Transition “Boom or Bust.”

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Process type
Unit
Supported nomenclature
ecoinvent 3.6
LCI modeling approach
Before modeling
Multifunctional modeling
NONE
Format
ECOSPOLD2
Aggregation type
NOT_APPLICABLE
Data provider
ecoinvent
Review status
External
Cost
For sale
License

ecoinvent EULA

Copyrighted
Yes
Copyright holder
ecoinvent Association
Contact
[email protected]