Vol.14 (2024) No. 3 ISSN: 2088-5334 Chemical Processing Development for Radioactive Minerals Processing Facility: A Circular Economy Model Nunik Madyaningarum a,* , Nicholas Bertony Saputra a , Kurnia Trinopiawan b , Amalia Ekaputri Hidayat b , Mustika Sari c , Yulaida Maya Sari a , Tri Purwanti b , Riesna Prassanti b , Roza Indra Laksmana b , Mochammad Ari Rahmadani a a Research Center for Safety, Metrology, and Nuclear Quality Technology, Research Organization for Nuclear Energy, National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), PUSPIPTEK Serpong, South Tangerang, 15314, Indonesia b Research Center for Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Radioactive Waste Technology, Research Organization for Nuclear Energy, National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), PUSPIPTEK Serpong, South Tangerang, 15314, Indonesia c Center for Sustainable Infrastructure Development, Universitas Indonesia, Depok 16424, Indonesia Corresponding author: * nuni005@brin.go.id Abstract—The minerals and metals industries are vital in the world’s economy, yet their use of resources and waste generation pose considerable issues. The circular economy is a concept that establishes the foundation for economic operations that are carried out to run sustainably and to promote economic welfare, which in turn leads to an improvement in environmental quality. This paper offers a comprehensive literature analysis on the principles and efficacy of circular economy in mineral processing, specifically focusing on radioactive minerals. This research aims to develop a circular economy model that preserves resources, reduces waste production, and complies with regulatory rules on radioactive waste management. The study outlines a clear and structured circular economy model consisting of four modules: sample preparation, decomposition, partial extraction, and total precipitation. Each module integrates energy efficiency, heat recovery, renewable energy, water reuse, and chemical recycling. The validated model provides a roadmap for implementing circular economy principles in processing radioactive materials, contributing to achieving sustainable development goals. The government's agenda in pursuit of the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) can be aided by this model. This study suggests that reducing resource use and the volume of material, energy, and waste generated by technological processes can be achieved while still maintaining quality. That concept brings about a change in the mindset of designing a mineral processing installation. Based on the result of this study, further study may be focused on implementing strategies for each module of the studied object. Keywords— Circular economy; mineral processing; radioactive; efficiency. Manuscript received 23 Oct. 2023; revised 9 May 2024; accepted 2 Jun. 2024. Date of publication 30 Jun. 2024. IJASEIT is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License. I. INTRODUCTION The mining and metals sectors substantially contribute to global economies and clean technology. Demand for minerals and rare earth elements is rising as the global economy becomes more dependent on clean technology such as electric vehicle batteries, wind turbines, and nuclear reactors[1]. Additionally, the mining and metals sectors use a lot of resources. For instance, the process of comminution, which entails the crushing and grinding of solid materials, is one of the major electricity consumers, using 3% of the total amount of electricity produced globally [1]. A comminution process is also used to process the monazite mineral, which can be wet or dry. These processes have advantages and disadvantages but require high energy to operate the milling equipment[2]. The monazite processing routes commonly used commercially in the world consist of acid and alkaline. The main difference between these two methods lies in the initial treatment of monazite, where the acid method uses sulfuric acid for monazite digestion, and the alkaline method uses sodium hydroxide to separate phosphate from monazite. After this initial treatment, purification of the digestion solution, both acid and alkali, is usually carried out and continued with Rare Earth Elements (REE) recovery from the purified solution[3]. In Indonesia, the developed monazite processing technology uses an alkaline method with process stages consisting of comminution, decomposition, partial 1049