Use of organosolv lignin hydrophobic nanoparticles as biodegradable flotation collectors (LIGNOFLOT)

Purpose and goal

During this project we managed to succeed in developing sustainable and biodegradable flotation collectors for the extration of base metals and replace the use of the toxic anionic flotation collectors that are currently used. The novel collectors was produced by using by-products and residues from the forest industry, demonstrating the synergies of forest and mining sector. Our results will contribute to the development of green mining processes for the extraction of valuable metals and reduce the environmental impact of the industry.

Expected results and effects

As a result of our work within this project, we managed to efficiently produce biobased collectors tto be used for base metal extraction from renewable resources.Our initial tests demonstrated that the newly developed collectors perform very well for the colelctions of metals such as Cu, Pb, Zn and Ni (from swedish and finnish mines) with the results to be comparable with the commerical collectors. Our results so far suggest that the currently used enviromentally toxic collectors can be replaced by the newly developed collectors.

Planned approach and implementation

This project consisted a small scale pre-study that would allow us to obtain results for the development of the green collectors and also proove that the process is working. We managed to succesfully collect significant amount of positive results that will allow us to further develop the newly developed process. This will involve the further optimization of the collector preparation and basic metal flotation. We will also examine the possibilities to use these collectors in more ores. Based on our results, we will also seek to get more funding to continue developing our process.