Ukraine plans to broaden its investment strategy for critical raw materials under the American-Ukrainian Reconstruction Investment Fund (AUIF), considering not only greenfield deposits but also alternative sources such as mining waste and tailings, Deputy Minister of Economy, Environment and Agriculture Yehor Perelyhin has said.
In a column for Interfax-Ukraine, Perelyhin described decades-old mining and metallurgical waste as a potential “new raw material base” capable of supplying metals essential for batteries, electronics, aviation, and defense — while also addressing environmental damage from legacy industrial activity.
He outlined six priority areas for exploration. The first involves tailings dams from mineral sands (titanium and monazite), where rutile, ilmenite, and zircon remain. Advanced processing and hydrometallurgy could unlock zirconium, hafnium, and scandium — vital for ceramics, optics, and aerospace.
A second area is “red sludge” and slags from titanium dioxide pigment and alumina plants, which contain scandium alongside titanium, iron, and aluminum. Perelyhin noted that existing technologies allow scandium extraction modules to be integrated directly into production lines, reducing costs and accelerating output.
Other promising sources include:
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Phosphogypsum and phosphate waste, where rare earth recovery can be paired with gypsum production for construction.
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Thermal power plant ash and coal dumps, which hold rare earths, gallium, scandium, aluminum, and germanium.
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Tailings of iron, copper, and nickel ores, where cobalt, tellurium, germanium, vanadium, tungsten, and even gold and silver may be recovered with modern leaching methods.
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Waste from uranium mining and processing, which contains vanadium, scandium, molybdenum, selenium, heavy rare earth elements, and yttrium, representing both strategic value and urgent environmental remediation needs.
Perelyhin emphasized that this “brownfield” approach offers quicker access to marketable materials with lower capital investment than new mines, aligning with both Ukraine’s industrial strategy and global demand for critical minerals.
