ProSUM Sampling and analysing group meeting

SIG meeting for sampling and analysis; February 13th, 2017

Characterizing the urban mine and mining waste

Practicalities of sample preparation and chemical analysis for complex products and waste materials

Background

Reference methods for chemical analysis that produce comparable results are an important
prerequisite for prospecting secondary raw materials (SRM) in the urban mine. Standardized
methods already exist for well-established matrices, such as ores or soils. This is not the case for
complex solid products like Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE), waste batteries, or
end-of-life vehicles (ELV) which have both high mass fractions of metals and a large number of
elements (smartphones consist of more than 60 elements), in combination with sometimes high
contents of organic materials from plastics. Hence, comparability of literature data from different
studies is not assured.
Systematic effects in sampling, sample preparation, and analysis influencing the results are
predominant. Deviating analytical methods impede a direct comparison of data. To tackle this issue
the ProSUM project has, inter alia, the following objectives:

-  Assessment of common analytical methods for chemical analysis of target elements for
particularly interesting waste fractions:
- Drawing element-specific recommendations for selected critical raw materials (CRM) for
these waste fractions.
- Determination of systematic effects due to different analytical methods.
- Assessment of the applicability of the recommendations for similar matrices.
- Derivation of recommendations on how to adapt analytical procedures to unknown/new
sample matrices (internal quality control).

A dedicated workshop, jointly organized with Aurubis AG, will bring together practitioners across
Europe and will allow in depth discussions about state of the art in CRM analysis and quality
assurance.