MissionZero Mine

The MissionZero Mine: a sustainable future for mineral processing

The MissionZero Mine is our vision for the future of mineral processing, delivered through transformative commodity-specific flowsheets. Encompassing evolutionary – and, in some cases, revolutionary – technologies and processes, these flowsheets deliver zero water and energy waste and zero emissions.

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Our MissionZero Mine flowsheets

Copper

Our MissionZero Mine copper flowsheets incorporate dry comminution, supported by bulk ore sorting, coarse particle flotation, and cutting-edge REFLUX separation, to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions compared to conventional SAG and ball mill circuits.

Why do we need the MissionZero Mine?

Mineral demand is expected to double by 2050, driven by economic growth, a rising population, particularly in the world’s cities, and the green transition. While recycling will play some role here, much will still be met by mining. Under the best of circumstances, meeting this demand would pose a challenge—and these are not the best of circumstances. Ore grades are declining while mines are getting deeper. Climate change and water access are demanding new strategies to limit the environmental and social impact of mining. This is why we need to change the paradigm. That’s why we need the MissionZero Mine vision.

MissionZero Mine

Explore the challenges

Recovery optimisation

Water stewardship

What does the MissionZero Mine look like?

The heart of the MissionZero Mine is an ambition to achieve zero-waste and zero-emission mining while enabling the production increases needed to meet that rising demand. Achieving this will require transformative mineral processing flowsheets. These will be commodity-specific and encompass technologies to improve energy efficiency, optimise recovery, enhance water stewardship and tailings management, and promote circularity. Some of these technologies already exist, while others will result from ongoing innovation.

Although we are focused on delivering full-flowsheet technology and service solutions, certain areas offer easy gains. These low-hanging fruit include:

Reducing comminution energy use with alternative grinding technologies and bulk ore sorting.
Reducing water use and maximising water recovery using dry grinding, innovative mineral separation techniques, concentrate and tailings thickening, and dry-stack tailings.
Enhancing mineral recovery to reduce the amount of valuable material lost to tailings, including reprocessing tailings and a sharper focus on co-production.
Reducing the carbon intensity of pyrometallurgical processes such as spodumene conversion in lithium production.
Advanced digital and data-based optimisation of mineral processing operations.

How these approaches (and others) are applied in practice will vary from site to site based on various factors, from economics and project type (greenfield or brownfield) to specific site conditions, ore characteristics, local regulations, and more. This means there will not be a single MissionZero Mine flowsheet, but many, each contributing to a sustainable mining industry.

Designing the right flowsheet for you

Putting the various technological and service offerings together into the optimum MissionZero Mine flowsheet for your mine will require access to expert process engineering skills backed by in-house testing capabilities and experience. FLS has both, allowing us to evaluate trade-offs, assess equipment selection and sizing according to application requirements, and deliver complete process islands backed by a single performance guarantee and point of contact for troubleshooting and optimisation.

Central to this is the FLS Minerals Testing and Research Centre. This state-of-the-art facility provides the detailed information needed to optimise process design and equipment selection, delivering the most cost-effective and environmentally sensitive circuit for the specific deposit. For example, right-sizing equipment to the specific ore and flowsheet saves both CAPEX and OPEX; it also ensures good energy efficiency and, so, reduces the carbon footprint. MTRC testing and analysis also highlights opportunities for flowsheet optimisation, such as splitting the flow, whereby only the finest materials report to thickening while the coarse material goes directly to filtration.

The MTRC also supports pilot testing of the latest MissionZero Mine innovations, such as coarseAIR coarse particle flotation and REFLUX separation . Pilot equipment is skid-mounted for easy shipment, set-up, and commissioning at the mine site, where it can be compared side-by-side with conventional processes. This allows mineral processing plants to see how these latest developments can optimise recovery rates while reducing key inputs, such as power consumption, energy costs, plant footprint, and water consumption.

Join the MissionZero Mine vision as an early adopter

As part of the MissionZero Mine innovation cycle, FLS seeks to partner with forward-thinking mining companies for pilot trials and early deployments. These provide critical insight into how the technology will work in real-world applications while allowing the mining company to explore new opportunities to take its process to the next level.

Trials and early deployments are designed to integrate easily into existing operations. Pilot equipment is skid-mounted for easy shipment, set-up, and commissioning at the mine site, where it can be compared side-by-side with conventional processes. This allows mineral processing plants to see how these latest developments can optimise recovery rates while reducing key inputs, such as power consumption, energy costs, plant footprint, and water consumption.

During the pilot phase, FLS works with the client to optimise the system and ensure it delivers the expected improvements. Depending on the results of the pilot phase, FLS can also assist with technology scale-up to production levels.

Beyond these operational benefits, early adopters position themselves as leaders in responsible mining at a time of increasing pressure to reduce environmental and social impact. They also gain both a critical early voice in the development of MissionZero Mine mineral flowsheets of the future and a key competitive edge over other operators.