Cradle-to-gate life cycle assessment of beneficiated phosphate rock production in Tunisia

Abstract To improve the sustainable management of phosphorus, numerous LCA studies, using primary data, have been conducted for phosphorus recovery technologies from wastewater, but not phosphate rock mining. This article addresses this issue by conducting a cradle to gate assessment beneficiated production data. study aims share an updated Life Cycle Inventory dataset production. The studied system is open-pit mining operations and wet beneficiation process located in south Tunisia. functional unit 1 kg P 2 O 5 . Twelve environmental impact categories were assessed ReCiPe Midpoint method. results show that average loss between operations, mechanical preparation, 0.3 per losses occur mainly during scrubbing hydrocycloning. Compared Florida, USA, according Ecoinvent database 3.4, Tunisia has higher Global Warming Potenzial, water depletion potential, PM10 emission, Photochemical oxidant formation, soil pollution human toxicity potential. In conclusion, data shows comparable generic cycle database. contributes enlarge about sedimentary extraction globally as currently only USA Morocco reported databases.