International Conference on Raw Materials and Circular Economy – RawMat2021

In the framework of the International Conference on Raw Materials and Circular Economy #RawMat2021, held on September, 5-9th 2021 in Athens (Greece), Lourdes Yurramendi presented the Oral Communication:

Recovery of tungsten from downstream mineral processing fractions by deep eutectic solvents

(L. Yurramendi, J. Nieto, A. Siriwardana)

 

With this work, Dr. Lourdes Yurramendi represented the Waste Valorisation group from TECNALIA. The Oral Communication was programmed on September, 7th, in the parallel session B5 Hydro-, Iono-, Solvometallurgy II, held in the Olymplia Plenary Room.

Tungsten was included among the Critical Raw Materials (CRM) in 2011, due to the high demand and scarcity of this metal in Europe, and it has been considered critical in the next CRM lists of 2014, 2017 and 2020. A strong research effort to reduce the dependence from external countries is being carried out.

In the presentation, a novel leaching technology based on Deep Eutectic Solvents was proposed as an environmentally-friendly alternative to current processes (involving strong acids, alkalis and/or high temperatures) for the extraction of tungsten from high- and low-grade ores.