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• Innovation is key to improving the environmental performance of the mining industry. • Benefits of adopting circularity (open-loop CDW recycling) in mining are exhibited. • Novel LCA scenarios in aggregates production combining state-of-the-art methods. • Mine-to-product simulation assists in reducing epistemic uncertainty in LCA. • Comprehensive and regionalized LCI considering both mine and product life cycles. Sustainability in mining must be envisioned from a more comprehensive perspective that involves the management of primary and secondary resources and that prioritizes the adoption of innovation beyond a techno-economic mindset. The holistic Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology is useful to diagnose the environmental profile of mining operations seeking a greater contribution to sustainability. This work proposes an enhanced life cycle-based approach for the minerals industry, which is supported by mine-to-product process simulation, scenario analysis, and a comprehensive and context-specific data collection involving the life cycles of the product and the mining project. The convenience of this approach in terms of reducing epistemic uncertainty is demonstrated with a Brazilian case study of a large-scale granitic quarry operation. It is shown that mining can contribute to sustainability by adopting sustainability-driven innovation and circularity principles. The proposed methodology can be applied to other mineral commodities and geographic contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comminution is an essential step in processing itabirite ores, given the need to liberate silica and other contaminants from the iron minerals for downstream concentration and then pellet feed production. In general, these ores in Brazil are not particularly hard to crush and grind, but both capital (CAPEx) and operating (OPEx) expenditures in this stage of preparation can be critical for the project, in particular due to uncertainties in iron ore prices. Several circuits have been designed and are in operation for this type of ore in Brazil; however, it is not yet clear which technologies are more cost-effective and in which configuration they should be applied. This work critically analyzes four comminution circuits for an undisclosed case study. For these circuits, CAPEx, OPEx, and some environmental sustainability indices, as well as qualitative technical criteria, were used in the comparisons. This work concludes that two of these process routes, especially those based on more energy-efficient technologies (and one of these still rarely explored even at bench-scale), have demonstrated to be very attractive from multiple standpoints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]