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Recognized as a fundamental sector that provides indispensable raw materials, the mineral industry has been a key sector in affecting global warming and climate change, due to the use of heavy machinery and energy consumption. Furthermore, as the quality of ore deposits declines, the final energy consumption per unit mass of mineral mining will also increase, resulting in an increase in energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions in the mining industry in the future. Although life cycle assessment (LCA) is widely recognized as an international standard tool for quantifying sustainability metrics and has been extensively adopted by both academia and industry, significant research gaps persist in its application to the mining sector, particularly regarding the systematic identification of key processes with high environmental impacts. To date, substantial amounts of effort have been devoted to conducting the LCA studies of the mineral industry. However, the field still lacks a comprehensive synthesis and critical analysis that systematically discusses the application of LCA in the mineral industry and its corresponding future perspective. Hence, this review mainly focuses on the LCA application in the mineral industry, introducing the LCA overview and its application methodology in the mineral industry, systematically summarizing and analyzing the significant research on the environmental impact of different minerals under diverse operational scenarios, and further proposing the limitations and improvement strategies of LCA in mining and mineral processing. It is our sincere hope that this review will inspire innovative ideas and solutions for applying LCA in mining and mineral processing, thereby injecting momentum into the sustainable development of the mineral industry.
Mi et al. (Wed,) studied this question.