In this section:
Towards a circular economy
Tungsten is an indispensable element for many essential industries. It is in the interests of mankind to extract it responsibly from nature, to use it in the most efficient way and to keep it in use as long as possible.
Reliable supply is crucial for industrial use of a metal such as tungsten. But today’s expectations developed far beyond mere supply related considerations. The efficient use of natural resources and the possibility to reuse or recycle them after product end-of-life became as important.
Concepts, such as the Circular Economy, emerged in all economic regions around the globe (EU, US, China). The idea is to keep the amount of material, in this case tungsten, which is lost by being dumped as waste or dissipated during use, as low as possible to reduce the need to extract (mine) new material to compensate. Even if no amount was lost, in a growing demand situation, as is the case for tungsten, new material has to be mined to supplement the system anyway, as more material will be in use.
From a supply and circularity point of view, tungsten is a reliable element with both proven reserves for primary production and a relatively high recycling rate (compared with other metals [1]).
It also offers potential for the future as the probability of discovery of new reserves is still there and the percentage of recycled material could also be increased.
Economy and thus feasibility of respective efforts plays a key role. Awareness for the involved timelines (in the case of mine development) and the need for establishment of complex collection and separation networks (in the case of recycling) is key for industrial supply.
[1] UNEP (2013), Recycling Rates of Metals – A Status Report. A Report of the Working Group on Global Metal Flows to the International Resource Panel. Graedel, T.E; Allwood, J; Birat, J-P; Reck, B.K; Sibley, S.F; Sonnemann, G; Buchert, M; Hagelüken, C.
The idea of a circular economy is to keep the amount of tungsten being dumped as waste or dissipated during use as low as possible to reduce the need to extract new material to compensate.
Circularity
From a supply and circularity point of view, tungsten is a reliable element with both proven reserves for primary production and a relatively high recycling rate (compared with other metals).
Tungsten is an indispensable element for many essential industries
It is in the interests of mankind to extract it responsibly from nature, to use it in the most efficient way and to keep it in use as long as possible.Secondary supply
Recycling
Efforts to develop the tungsten industry towards circularity have strongly increased over the last few decades.
Tungsten, with a recycling rate* of around 35%, belongs to the group of metals with a recycling input rate above 25% which, according to an UNEP Report (2013), is only achieved by one-third of the 60 metals investigated. [1]
While scrap from the production process (aka: “production scrap” or “new scrap”) is collected and almost entirely recycled, the situation of tungsten containing products at the end of their product life is different.
Around 30% flows in a circular way, while 70% is lost by:
- dissipation during use – for example, by abrasion as a wear part
- dilution by “non functional recycling” – for example, ended as scrap or as an impurity in general steel production
- discard – some of which may still be available for future collection to be brought back into the circle, for example, sitting in scrap yards, known waste dumps, or being part of idled old machinery.
There clearly exists potential for future improvement, for increased collection, separation and functional recycling, as well as product developments to reduce dissipation loss. Loss from production processes may be dumped in a way to be preserved for the future as a potential resource in case new technologies make recycling feasible.
For some of the tungsten products, such as cutting inserts for machining, recycling rates already today exceed 95% in industrial environment and potential loss by dilution is actively addressed by motivating end users to collect and separate tungsten containing products through buy-back programmes.
Other products are more difficult to collect or to separate the tungsten containing parts from the rest of the product and need the combined effort of end users, collectors and additional technology to be feasibly kept in the circle.
* the fraction of secondary (scrap) metal in the total metal input to metal production
[1] See Figure 5. UNEP (2013), Recycling Rates of Metals – A Status Report. A Report of the Working Group on Global Metal Flows to the International Resource Panel. Graedel, T.E; Allwood, J; Birat, J-P; Reck, B.K; Sibley, S.F; Sonnemann, G; Buchert, M; Hagelüken, C.
Tungsten has a recycling input rate of around 35%.
Tungsten recycling
The following publications provide more in-depth information on the recycling of tungsten.
Recycling of tungsten (part 1)
Current share, economic limitations and future potential.
Download
Recycling of tungsten (part 2)
Technology – history, state of the art and peculiarities.
DownloadPrimary supply
Deposits, reserves and mine production
Tungsten has experienced a growing global demand as new uses and applications are discovered and as international manufacturing has grown.
Recycling helps to reduce the need for new extraction but with recycling rates not keeping pace with demand for tungsten, the gap has to be filled by mining.
To be able to mine tungsten, natural deposits have to be discovered and developed. In principle, such deposits are found all over the globe. Active mine development and actual tungsten mine production is more focused in a few regions.
Known tungsten deposits and estimated reserves would last for another 45 years if divided by the actual annual demand for mined (ie primary) tungsten. As, in the past, every year new reserves were found, this figure was stable over time. And as drilling for new reserves is costly, it will not be done excessively, as long as sufficient reserves are known.
Minerals
There are two industrially important tungsten minerals which are mined, processed and used as concentrate: scheelite (calcium tungstate CaWO4 and wolframite (iron manganese tungstate (Fe,Mn)WO4).
The ratio between iron and manganese in wolframite may vary and the iron dominant variation of wolframite is called ferberite (iron tungstate FeWO4), while the manganese dominant one is called huebnerite (manganese tungstate MnWO4).
Scheelite (calcium tungstate (CaWO4)).
Wolframite (iron manganese tungstate (Fe,Mn)WO4).
Deposits
Tungsten deposits can be found in many different places all over the world.
A newly discovered deposit is a potential resource and only can count as a reserve if further investigations show that the ore could be mined and processed in an economically feasible way.
Tungsten deposits can be found in many different places all over the world.
Reserves
Global tungsten reserves are estimated by the USGS at 3.8 million tonnes (Report 2023), around half (47%) of which are estimated to be in China.
Mine production
Around half of today’s known reserves are located in China, while the country contributes more than 80% to global tungsten mine production.
Mine development
One important aspect of primary tungsten production is the involved lead times from discovery of a deposit to actual start of production. To develop a mine from “green field” may take decades; to reactivate old tungsten mines may speed up the process, but this usually still takes years before actual production can resume.
While in the early stage of the process, there is still a high risk that it may turn out not be feasible to go ahead and the final stages of actual mine construction usually involve high investments and, despite the lower risk, still need dedicated investors to be found.
One important aspect of primary tungsten production is the involved lead times from discovery of a deposit to actual start of production – which has to be counted in years.
Copyright images courtesy of: Tungco, Sandvik, B Zeiler, ITIA, Epiroc