For two decades the industrialised world has relied on China and Chinese resources for satisfying their needs for metals and raw materials used in production of state-of-the-art technological items. An example here is the rare earth elements. The Western world closed down mines, production facilities and even the universities stopped or reduced their education in recovery methods for these and related compounds. In 2009 China shocked the same industrialized world by declaring that they will reduce production and export of rare earth elements. This has led to a new understanding in industrial management on security of supply of raw materials and the cost of such security, but also an understanding at government-level of the importance of surveying and exploring domestic resources. Thus, in Norway there is an on-going major survey initiated by the Norwegian Government on mineral deposits in Northern Norway. In addition, the Ministry of Trade and Industry has presented a Strategy for the Mineral Industry in Norway (2013).

The Canadian Mining industry has in 2012 pinpointed the following topics as essential: Discovering new mineral resources; Extending life of existing ore bodies; Lowering production costs; Improving productivity; Increasing value added; Reducing environmental footprint; Improving health and safety. Except for the first two topics, hydrometallurgy will play a significant role in solving these challenges.

Norway is a high cost society with an economy strongly influenced by the petroleum industry. Nevertheless, there are strong Norwegian industries based on minerals and refined raw materials, domestic as well as imported. Some types of minerals are scarce and the exploitation of less rich deposits or deposits with high content of impurities is to be expected in the future. This means that even less than world class deposits in Norway may be considered as resources, and possibly exploited. It is however required, that the processes must be adjusted so that the gangue materials and impurities are removed, and here hydrometallurgy will offer solutions. As one example in the fertilizer industry the removal of cadmium from dissolved phosphate feed-stocks has been worked on for several decades, but still economical viable solutions are lacking.

The Norwegian mineral and refining industry is among the most environmentally friendly in the world, but still there are possible improvements to be made. For the mining industry, recovery of metals from waste steams will reduce waste, reduce the solids to deposit, and reduce the amount of caustic needed for sliming. It is important to be able to exploit the available resources in the best possible way to improve competitiveness. For example, to just produce the mineral and export it as a crushed rock material is not the optimum way of doing business from the society’s point of view. Instead, to extract as much of the high value elements as possible is beneficial in several ways:

Increased income

The local and international industry is supplied with high quality raw materials from a near-by source

The supply comes from stable sources and a stable society

The Norwegian society gets economic benefits

The Norwegian knowledge base is maintained and increased, making it possible to have spin-offs, e.g. in nanotechnology, semiconductors, and electronics.

Reduced footprint with respect to transport

To maintain and even improve existing technology it is imperative that there exists educational- and research-environments in the field of hydrometallurgy. Traditionally, the key topics of hydrometallurgy are: leaching, solid-liquid separation, liquid-liquid (solvent) extraction, ion-exchange, precipitation-, cementation-, and filtration technologies, membrane separations, electrolysis for recovery and refining, etc. In addition, beneficiation of minerals is often regarded as a part of hydrometallurgy, comprising magnetic separation of minerals, gravitational separation and floatation. Figure 1 is a diagram showing the different parts in the process from mining of ore containing the mineral of interest to a high value product. Too often Norwegian mining enterprises sell their minerals as concentrates, i.e. stops at the upper circle, whereas the lower, large circle indicates the high value product which may be used in production of high technology items.