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Smart & Sustainable Society INNOVATION
Rock blasting design method based on drilling characterisation data for improving individual rock mass description to improve economic efficiency of the process
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Market Maturity: Tech Ready
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Market Creation Potential
This innovation was assessed by the JRC’s Market Creation Potential indicator framework as addressing the needs of existing markets and existing customers. Learn more
Go to Market needs
Needs that, if addressed, can increase the chances this innovation gets to (or closer to) the market incude:
  • Prepare for Market entry
  • Secure capital
  • Scale-up market opportunities
Location of Key Innovators developing this innovation
Key Innovators
UN Sustainable Development Goals(SDG)
This innovation contributes to the following SDG(s)
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOAL 9
Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation

The UN explains: "Investments in infrastructure – transport, irrigation, energy and information and communication technology – are crucial to achieving sustainable development and empowering communities in many countries. It has long been recognized that growth in productivity and incomes, and improvements in health and education outcomes require investment in infrastructure."

The EU-funded Research Project
This innovation was developed under the Horizon 2020 project SLIM with an end date of 31/10/2020
  • Read more about this project on CORDIS
Description of Project SLIM
The main economic, technological and environmental challenges of small mining include reducing high investment costs, reducing generation of waste and large tailings, identifying and addressing environmental impacts, and improving flexibility, automation and safety of operations. However, at the moment, there is no quick-fix available to reduce the environmental impact from mines, and it is neither realistic to expect production solutions very distant from today’s technologies. Considering that the present mining technology is based on rock blasting and mobile mining equipment for loading and transportation, the major challenge is to generate a new sustainable systemic solution that affects positively the relevant mining value chain. SLIM aims to develop a cost-effective and sustainable selective low impact mining solution based on non-linear rock mass fragmentation by blasting models, airborne particulate matter, vibration affections and nitrate leaching mitigation actions for exploitation of small mineral deposits (including those with chemically complex ore-forming phases) through a new generation of explosives and an advanced automatic blast design software based on improved rock mass characterisation and fragmentation models for optimum fragmentation and minimum rock damage and far-field vibrations. SLIM consortium is led by UPM (es), with LTU (se), MUL (at) and TUG (at) as Research Insitutions, 3GSM (at - Rock fragmentation and blasting software), MAXAM (es - Explosives), ORGIVA (es - Fluorite mine) and ERZBERG (at - Iron mine) and ARNO (es - Quarry) as validators in relevant environment. BRGM (fr), INVESTORNET (dk), MINPOL (at), and ZABALA (es) complement the Environmental and Economic assessments, the Communication and Dissemination activities and Social Awareness actions. SLIM addresses the following issue: a) Sustainable selective low impact mining (2016), it has a planned duration of 48 months and a budget of €6,979,200 requesting €6,979,200 of EU funding.

Innnovation Radar's analysis of this innovation is based on data collected on 31/01/2020.
The unique id of this innovation in the European Commission's IT systems is: 16027