AVANTIS - Sustainable, decarbonised vanadium, titanium and iron extraction from Europe’s low-grade vanadium-bearing titanomagnetite deposits

The European Commission´s Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA) sets multiple benchmarks 
for reducing Europe’s dependency on a few third countries for strategic/critical raw 
materials. Vanadium (V) and titanium (Ti) have received less attention than other CRMs 
such as the battery raw materials, or the light/heavy rare-earth elements that have been 
central to many previously funded projects. However, the situation for vanadium and 
titanium is no different to that of the popular CRMs: there is no domestic vanadium or 
(refined) titanium metal production in the EU, making the EU critically dependent on 
imports. To help achieve the benchmark of 10% domestic extraction in CRMA, AVANTIS 
will develop a low-carbon, multi- grade under/unexploited, vanadium-bearing 
titanomagnetite (Ti-V-Fe-(P)) deposits and mining wastes.  
Europe has a multitude of unexploited, low-grade V-bearing titanomagnetite deposits in 
Finland, Sweden, Greenland, Norway, Poland and Ukraine. However, these deposits have 
a complex “spiderweb-like” mineral assemblage. Without selective blasting, selective 
fragmentation and pre-concentration technologies to separate the Ti-rich ilmenite grains 
from the V-bearing magnetite, these deposits are not economically viable. Supported by a 
bespoke forensic geometallurgy, AVANTIS develops a novel selective blasting approach 
that allows for rock excavation in view of increased mineral liberation at the blasting stage, 
and reduced energy demand in the crushing and grinding stages. In addition, AVANTIS 
designs tailored, water-free and water-lean pre-concentration technologies that can 
produce two distinct pre-concentrates: (1) ilmenite-rich, Ti-pre-concentrate and (2) 
ilmenite-free, V-pre-concentrate. The water-lean method is also tailored to process V/Ti-
bearing mining wastes from historical/on-going operations. It is expected that the resulting 
flowsheets have a low net water consumption and reduced GHG intensity of extraction. 
AVANTIS strengthens the “responsible mining in Europe”-paradigm, increasing society’s 
trust in domestic CRM production.