With a focus on resource efficiency, technological innovation, and a commitment to sustainability, Trisector has developed innovative processes for recycling mining waste into premium-quality products.
Trisector is at the forefront of the agile and lean manufacturing of industrial minerals, utilising innovative processes to recycle mining waste into premium-quality products. Trisector’s efficient use of resources not only ensures reduced operational costs but also enhances profitability, creating substantial long-term value for its stakeholders.
Trisector serves key sectors, including construction, agriculture, and other industries in northwest Europe, aligning its operations with the principles of the circular economy to benefit society and protect the environment.
Owners’ commitment positions Trisector as a leader in sustainable industrial practices, promising a resilient future for its business and the planet.
Leading the way towards a holistic concept in mineral resource extraction
In a world grappling with environmental challenges, Trisector leads the way in sustainable innovation for the extraction of mineral resources by upcycling mineral waste from oil shale mining into valuable secondary raw materials. This process helps industries that use mineral products to reduce their reliance on virgin raw materials, the extraction of which often adversely affects the environment.
Trisector aims to balance the need for resource extraction with the principles of sustainability, responsible stewardship and community wellbeing by applying resource efficiency, restoring and preserving ecosystems and minimising waste generation.
Trisector applies a proprietary process based on advanced beneficiation technologies, using a data-driven approach to optimise beneficiation performance for processing mineral waste. This delivers a maximum range of recoverable valuable mineral products while minimising negative impacts.
In addition to providing mineral products from waste, the resulting upcycled products boast advanced sustainability labels, detailing specific energy and water requirements as well as carbon footprints, offering advantages over identical primary raw materials.
Demand for affordable, sustainable raw materials
Trisector’s recycled-origin mineral products provide a crucial solution for manufacturers and builders to meet the increasing demand for resource efficiency and the use of recycled components driven by legislation and consumer behaviour. The market for superior-grade recycled-origin mineral materials used in composites such as plastic, paper, paints, and sealants remains largely underserved and overlooked. Furthermore, Trisector can offer competitive pricing for a wide range of products traditionally sourced from virgin mineral resources.
Redefining resource efficiency in mineral resource extraction
By embracing resource efficiency and ensuring the use of mined resources to the fullest possible extent, Trisector is transforming end-of-life mineral waste originating from oil shale mining to secondary raw materials. By implementing Trisector’s proprietary technology, rejected mineral waste from the run of mine is upcycled to mineral products, thus minimising waste generation and environmental impact. This approach sharply contrasts with traditional mining, which processes only the valuable ore from extracted run-of-mine material and disposes of the rejected mineral waste, creating huge tailings mounds. Moreover, by processing mineral waste accumulated from decades of mining activity, Trisector is further restoring ecosystems affected by mining.
Selecting the best: A technological advantage
Trisector’s success is built on selecting the best practices from the existing mineral processing industry and combining them with cutting-edge technologies from other industries. Despite coarse mine tailings comprising a diverse array of rocks with varying compositions, technological capabilities from outside the mineral beneficiation field, particularly in data gathering and processing, enable Trisector to extract valuable minerals like calcium carbonate.
Advancing with intelligent technology
In collaboration with mineral processing equipment manufacturers, Trisector has adopted the latest technology and tailored it to suit its resources optimally. This approach enhances the efficiency of each process step and improves product quality. Partnering with Siemens, Trisector is digitising the entire process, leveraging digital twin technology for optimisation.
In this way, Trisector aims to use fewer resources per produced mineral product, achieve its business goals, and provide higher-quality recycled products to its customers.
Blockchain technology is applied to enhance supply chain management by providing a secure, transparent, and efficient way to track and manage the flow of products and information across the supply chain.
Turning mineral waste into economic opportunity
‘Waste is only waste if you waste it.’ This slogan encapsulates Trisector’s philosophy. For Trisector, mineral waste is a valuable raw material which can be upcycled for numerous industrial applications. As a pioneering green-tech company, Trisector is in the final stages of optimising its innovative process to upcycle mine tailings into secondary raw materials for industrial-scale implementation. The resulting secondary raw materials include industrial minerals for construction, road building, and agroforestry applications, as well as functional fillers used in plastics, paper, paints, and sealants.
Large deposits
In Estonia’s Ida-Virumaa County, decades of oil shale processing have produced enormous ash hills, slag mountains, and mine tailings mounds, totalling nearly a billion tons of waste. Trisector aims to convert the mine tailings into coarse and fine industrial minerals and mineral fillers in partnership with Enefit Power, which has, over time, accumulated substantial mine tailings at the Estonia Mine. With almost 150 million tons of mining waste stockpiled over more than 50 years, the commercial potential for upcycling this extractive waste through Trisector’s innovative processing is evident.
Comprehensive value innovation for enhanced product Scope 3
Trisector aims to be a leading Scope 3 partner in their field, helping to reduce carbon emissions in mineral product applications through their comprehensive approach.
Trisector’s philosophy has always been rooted in green technology, focusing on 100% resource utilisation, maximum use of renewable energy, energy efficiency, and green logistics. While not all goals can be achieved immediately, Trisector uses the best available technology and strives to meet these objectives step by step.
Throughout the entire logistics chain, Trisector is committed to minimising its environmental footprint.
Expanding capacity and creating jobs
The first phase of Trisector’s plant will have an annual capacity of 1 million tons, with plans to increase this in modules targeting 5 million tons. Trisector is investing nearly an additional €1m to complete the development of the innovative technology, supported by €658,000 from the Just Transition Fund. The total planned investment for an initial full-scale production plant amounts to €30m.
This ambitious project will create up to 100 new, high-skilled jobs and generate work for many indirect partners. With 90% of production aimed for export to Scandinavia and northern continental Europe, logistics play a crucial role. Initially, sea transport will be the primary export channel, with rail transport within Estonia. The completion of Rail Baltic, connecting the Baltic countries to the European-gauge rail network,
will further enhance the potential for rail exports of
high-quality mineral products to northwest Europe.
For inquiries contact Paavo Pettai.
Please note, this article will also appear in the 19th edition of our quarterly publication.
