Mineral Processing

What's in your EV battery?

Electric cars need mining. As we move forward in the energy transition, minerals and metals are key in the development of next-generation mobility.

This first step is mining. It’s the process of removing the raw material from the Earth.

Extract

Search each image below and learn more when you find a hidden car part. Ready to play?

This is when rocks get crushed into smaller rocks. Rocks containing copper are sorted and separated from the others.

Crush and Sort

In this stage, the rocks get broken up into even smaller rocks, some pieces as fine as sand. Typically, this occurs in giant cylindrical bins that spin around with large iron balls breaking up the rocks.

Mill

This is when the sandy substance is mixed with water and chemicals. In this example, air is pumped into the bottom of the tank, and the copper sticks to it and is brought to the top.

Beneficiation

For copper, metal recovery happens in an Olympic swimming-pool sized bath. Anodes are placed into the solution containing copper ore, and the copper clings to the anodes.

Metal Recovery

Learn more about Mine Process Plants at Stantec

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You haven’t found all the car parts yet. Keep trying!

New, specialised flotation reactors have a small footprint compared to conventional flotation reactors. This smaller footprint means a reduction in energy intensity. Also, coarse particle flotation (CPF) can allow for mineral recovery at coarser grind sizes. Being able to process coarser materials results in less energy and water use. Selecting the proper separation technique resulted in optimised production for an iron ore site in Australia.

Upgrading Technology

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The high-grade copper is on its way to a refinery for final production. You identified five upgrades that increase how much copper we recovered, and you found cost savings along the way. By implementing changes like these, you're being a good steward of Earth’s finite resources.

Congratulations!

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This process requires a lot of energy. Moving away from diesel energy sources and transitioning to renewable energy helps reduce carbon emissions. We’ve been seeing a lot of cleaner energy sources like wind, solar, hydropower, pumped storage, and biofuels at mine sites. For example, Stantec is working to reduce BHP’s Scope 2 GHG gas emissions at its Leinster and Mount Keith nickel operations in Western Australia by incorporating solar power.

Transitioning to renewable energy

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Some forms of milling use a lot of water—so let’s use it wisely! Instead of bringing water in and discharging it, there are opportunities to create a closed loop water flow. Recycling water takes little up-front planning, but with technology to clean the water throughout the flow, this could be a more attractive option in the future—especially in arid climates. Similar water reuse examples exist in mining, too.

Recycling Water

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Much of the rock extracted from the Earth during mining is not the sought-after ore. By crushing and sorting the high grade ore from lower grade ore, we reduce the need to transport heavy material offsite.

In Pit or Underground Crushing

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Extracting the rocks from the Earth can be made more sustainable by using BEVs. By utilising both electric and autonomous vehicles, clients can reduce carbon emissions while also improving safety for their staff. Though they are a good option, there are both benefits and potential obstacles to explore when evaluating BEV-readiness at a mine site.

Battery Electric Vehicles

Restart

Product Form Boulder

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Stage 1

Stage 2

Stage 3

Stage 4

Stage 5

Find the part

Extract

Crush & Sort

Mill

Beneficiation

Metal Recovery

Engine START

Sustainable Improvement:

Game – Search & Find

Next Stage

Finish Line

Iron 2.7%

Lithium 3.2%

Cobalt 4.3%

Manganese 5.4%

Steel 10.8%

Copper 10.8%

Nickel 15.7%

Aluminium 18.9%

Graphite 28.1%

Click to see what's inside an EV battery

One electric car requires more than 180 kilograms (400 pounds) of mined materials like copper, nickel, and lithium.

What raw materials are in an EV?

The question is... how do you sustainably get car materials from a pile of rocks?

Cyclone Mineral Sands Project: Planning a New Mine When Lost Sands identified zircon in the Eucla Basin, we provided multi-disciplinary services to support their proposal to extract it.

Mineral Extraction

Tanami Expansion Project: Feasibility Study Developing a three-stage crushing plant design for the expansion of Newmont’s gold mine.

Crushing Circuits

Copper Concentrator Plant: SAG Mill Upgrade Replacing two semi-autogenous grinding mills and upgrade of motor and electrical drive systems to improve production efficiencies.

Grinding Mills

Flash Flotation Facility: Engineering Design Developing process and layout options of a new flotation cell for BHP Nickel West.

Flotation Cells

Ultrafine Iron Recovery: Feasibility Study Optimising the recovery of ultrafine iron using wet high intensity magnetic separation.

Magnetic Separation

Learn more about sustainable mining and mineral processing

Product Form Boulder

Product Form rocks

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Product Form Slurry

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