Periodic Reporting for period 1 - AVANTIS (Sustainable, decarbonised vanadium, titanium and iron extraction from Europe’s low-grade vanadium-bearing titanomagnetite deposits)
Période du rapport: 2024-01-01 au 2025-06-30
Europe is almost entirely dependent on imports for critical raw materials like titanium (Ti) and vanadium (V), with a strong reliance on China and Russia. Yet, Europe holds vast but underexploited reserves of Ti-V-Fe-(P) deposits across countries such as Finland, Sweden, Norway, Poland, and Ukraine. These complex ores, however, are currently not economically viable to process due to their intricate “spiderweb-like” mineral structure, which makes it difficult to separate Ti- and V-rich phases using conventional methods.
AVANTIS aims to change this by developing an innovative, low-carbon mining approach that combines selective blasting, energy-efficient fragmentation, water free and water-lean pre-concentration technologies. Supported by forensic geometallurgy, this approach aims to enable the early and efficient separation of ilmenite (Ti) and magnetite (V), producing two distinct pre-concentrates for further refinement.
Aligned with the EU Critical Raw Materials Act, AVANTIS helps advance Europe’s goal of sourcing at least 10% of its CRMs domestically. It not only reduces strategic dependency but also opens the door to co-extract valuable by-products such as rare earth elements and phosphorus. The project offers a scalable, responsible model for tapping into Europe’s mineral wealth and strengthening its industrial resilience.
AVANTIS aims to change this by developing an innovative, low-carbon mining approach that combines selective blasting, energy-efficient fragmentation, water free and water-lean pre-concentration technologies. Supported by forensic geometallurgy, this approach aims to enable the early and efficient separation of ilmenite (Ti) and magnetite (V), producing two distinct pre-concentrates for further refinement.
Aligned with the EU Critical Raw Materials Act, AVANTIS helps advance Europe’s goal of sourcing at least 10% of its CRMs domestically. It not only reduces strategic dependency but also opens the door to co-extract valuable by-products such as rare earth elements and phosphorus. The project offers a scalable, responsible model for tapping into Europe’s mineral wealth and strengthening its industrial resilience.
For the technical WPs:
WP1 (Exploration and forensic geometallurgy) focuses on the geochemical, mineralogical, and metallurgical characterization of the specified ore deposits, tailings, and process products, including their classification according to UNFC standards.
A standard operating procedure (SOP) for ore characterization that all partners adhere to has been outlined and agreed upon. The reliability and validity of the analytical techniques to be used among the laboratories have been established. Sampling, sample handling, and delivery across the project partners have been conducted as planned, and a guideline and material flow spreadsheet have been prepared and communicated to all work packages. Ore deposits, tailings, and process stream products are being characterized, and geoinformation is shared through databases, reports, and monthly meetings. In addition, an Excel-based data package was compiled for each deposit and tailing. The collection of geodata from each ore deposit study and process is in progress for UNFC classification.
WP2 (Novel selective blasting and bulk ore sorting technologies) aims at defining the optimum fragmentation by blasting that contributes to an optimum mineral processing of the specific ores studied in terms of energy efficiency, concentrate yield and recovery rate. The test site was geologically, mineralogically, geo-structurally (joints) and geo-mechanically (compressive strength) characterized, and the blasting site was prepared by excavating a 60 m long x 5 m wide x 1.6 m deep trench. Different blast designs were made and sixteen blasts were conducted in June 2025. On-site sieving and weighing of the excavated muckpiles were performed, separating size cuts at >180, 180 – 120, 120 – 60, 60 – 25, 25 – 10 and < 10 mm. The total amount of material sieved was in the range of 30 t per blast. Heaps of that material (six per blast, totalling 96 heaps) were made and samples from them collected for analysis in WPs 1, 3 and 8. Bulk ore sorting was also tested on the raw run-of-mine of the sixteen blasts.
WP3 (Selective fragmentation and pre-concentration technologies) objective is to apply selective fragmentation technologies to better liberate vanadium- and titanium-bearing minerals from Ti-V-containing hard rock ores for water-free pre-concentration using less energy. In addition, old tailings can contain significant amounts of CRMs. Consequently, another objective of the WP3 is to create a new water-lean flowsheets to extract the fine-grained minerals from tailings.
Based on the test work results on the Mustavaara and Krzemianka Fe-Ti-V ores, selective fragmentation using a continuous compression lamella crusher (CLC) can improve liberation of magnetite for more than 20%, compared with the conventional two-stage comminution. Fragmentation by high pressure grinding rolls (HPGR) improved liberation of both magnetite and ilmenite for only a few percentages, compared with the conventional technology. Furthermore, fragmentation generally appears to break the rock more selectively with a significantly smaller very fine material fraction compared to conventional comminution, which is a promising sign not only from the water-free processing perspective but also from the perspective of overall resource efficiency.
WP4 (Integrated environmental, health & safety, public acceptance and techno- economic assessment) primary objective is to develop an integrated assessment framework addressing the environmental impacts (through LCA), health and safety (H&S), public acceptance, and techno-economic viability (through TEA) of tailored extraction routes for V and Ti.
Key AVANTIS case studies and the reference process were fully defined in line with the project objectives and the ongoing LCA and TEA activities. The environmental and human health impacts due to the presence of PHEs in the Otanmäki tailings are evaluated. In addition, public acceptance challenges including land uses, risk for groundwater and soil contamination, as well as H&S impacts associated with V/Ti projects, are investigated and assessed.
WP1 (Exploration and forensic geometallurgy) focuses on the geochemical, mineralogical, and metallurgical characterization of the specified ore deposits, tailings, and process products, including their classification according to UNFC standards.
A standard operating procedure (SOP) for ore characterization that all partners adhere to has been outlined and agreed upon. The reliability and validity of the analytical techniques to be used among the laboratories have been established. Sampling, sample handling, and delivery across the project partners have been conducted as planned, and a guideline and material flow spreadsheet have been prepared and communicated to all work packages. Ore deposits, tailings, and process stream products are being characterized, and geoinformation is shared through databases, reports, and monthly meetings. In addition, an Excel-based data package was compiled for each deposit and tailing. The collection of geodata from each ore deposit study and process is in progress for UNFC classification.
WP2 (Novel selective blasting and bulk ore sorting technologies) aims at defining the optimum fragmentation by blasting that contributes to an optimum mineral processing of the specific ores studied in terms of energy efficiency, concentrate yield and recovery rate. The test site was geologically, mineralogically, geo-structurally (joints) and geo-mechanically (compressive strength) characterized, and the blasting site was prepared by excavating a 60 m long x 5 m wide x 1.6 m deep trench. Different blast designs were made and sixteen blasts were conducted in June 2025. On-site sieving and weighing of the excavated muckpiles were performed, separating size cuts at >180, 180 – 120, 120 – 60, 60 – 25, 25 – 10 and < 10 mm. The total amount of material sieved was in the range of 30 t per blast. Heaps of that material (six per blast, totalling 96 heaps) were made and samples from them collected for analysis in WPs 1, 3 and 8. Bulk ore sorting was also tested on the raw run-of-mine of the sixteen blasts.
WP3 (Selective fragmentation and pre-concentration technologies) objective is to apply selective fragmentation technologies to better liberate vanadium- and titanium-bearing minerals from Ti-V-containing hard rock ores for water-free pre-concentration using less energy. In addition, old tailings can contain significant amounts of CRMs. Consequently, another objective of the WP3 is to create a new water-lean flowsheets to extract the fine-grained minerals from tailings.
Based on the test work results on the Mustavaara and Krzemianka Fe-Ti-V ores, selective fragmentation using a continuous compression lamella crusher (CLC) can improve liberation of magnetite for more than 20%, compared with the conventional two-stage comminution. Fragmentation by high pressure grinding rolls (HPGR) improved liberation of both magnetite and ilmenite for only a few percentages, compared with the conventional technology. Furthermore, fragmentation generally appears to break the rock more selectively with a significantly smaller very fine material fraction compared to conventional comminution, which is a promising sign not only from the water-free processing perspective but also from the perspective of overall resource efficiency.
WP4 (Integrated environmental, health & safety, public acceptance and techno- economic assessment) primary objective is to develop an integrated assessment framework addressing the environmental impacts (through LCA), health and safety (H&S), public acceptance, and techno-economic viability (through TEA) of tailored extraction routes for V and Ti.
Key AVANTIS case studies and the reference process were fully defined in line with the project objectives and the ongoing LCA and TEA activities. The environmental and human health impacts due to the presence of PHEs in the Otanmäki tailings are evaluated. In addition, public acceptance challenges including land uses, risk for groundwater and soil contamination, as well as H&S impacts associated with V/Ti projects, are investigated and assessed.
It is too early to present major project results in Period 1. Those are expected in a later stage of the project, as AVANTIS meta objective is to help achieve the benchmark of 10% domestic extraction in the EU's CRMA, AVANTIS will develop a low-carbon, multi-metal extraction approach for Europe's low-grade under/unexploited, vanadium-bearing titanomagnetite (Ti-V-Fe-(P)) deposits (and mining wastes) in Finland, Sweden, Norway, Poland and Ukraine. This novel "responsible mining" approach will extract two key CRMs V and Ti as pre-concentrates, which can be further processed by the relevant downstream industries to high-purity materials, e.g. VRFB, Ti-V alloy. AVANTIS will also impact on the co-extraction of light rare earths and phosphorus from the rare-earth containing apatite concentrate.