TY - CHAP

T1 - Analysis of life cycle datasets for the material gold

AU - Fritz, Benjamin

AU - Schmidt, Mario

PY - 2021

Y1 - 2021

N2 - The representation of gold-producing processes in common life cycle assessment (LCA) databases is insufficient. The biggest problems identified are the missing data for recycling of high-value scraps and for ASM and the estimations in industrial mining. The life cycle inventories (LCI) for the latter are based on corporate reports. The data available from the company figures are always incomplete and must therefore be scaled between the different mines. This process was defined in this work as Intersystemic-Data-Scaling (IDS). An analogy is presumed here between mines, although literature shows that there are differences in mines like ore types that affect the extraction processes and thus the LCI. In the present study all the assumptions and IDS were visualized in a world map. It was found that except for energy demand and production volumes there is no flow without IDS. Finally, the actual shares of the different gold routes in the world market were estimated using literature research. When compared to the market shares used in common life cycle databases it can be seen that there are big data gaps emphasizing the importance of further data collection for the life cycle datasets for the material gold.

AB - The representation of gold-producing processes in common life cycle assessment (LCA) databases is insufficient. The biggest problems identified are the missing data for recycling of high-value scraps and for ASM and the estimations in industrial mining. The life cycle inventories (LCI) for the latter are based on corporate reports. The data available from the company figures are always incomplete and must therefore be scaled between the different mines. This process was defined in this work as Intersystemic-Data-Scaling (IDS). An analogy is presumed here between mines, although literature shows that there are differences in mines like ore types that affect the extraction processes and thus the LCI. In the present study all the assumptions and IDS were visualized in a world map. It was found that except for energy demand and production volumes there is no flow without IDS. Finally, the actual shares of the different gold routes in the world market were estimated using literature research. When compared to the market shares used in common life cycle databases it can be seen that there are big data gaps emphasizing the importance of further data collection for the life cycle datasets for the material gold.

KW - Data gaps

KW - Gold mining

KW - Life cycle inventories

KW - Market datasets

KW - Mineral extraction

KW - Sustainability Science

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85091592328&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/128f2f5b-e272-3209-9540-f81dfc1c2afd/

U2 - 10.1007/978-3-030-50519-6_8

DO - 10.1007/978-3-030-50519-6_8

M3 - Contributions to collected editions/anthologies

AN - SCOPUS:85091592328

SN - 978-3-030-50518-9

SN - 978-3-030-50521-9

T3 - Sustainable Production, Life Cycle Engineering and Management

SP - 99

EP - 112

BT - Progress in Life Cycle Assessment 2019

A2 - Albrecht, Stefan

A2 - Fischer, Matthias

A2 - Leistner, Philip

A2 - Schebek, Liselotte

PB - Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH

CY - Cham

ER -