Treasure from trash: Mining critical metals from waste and unconventional sources

Antony van der Ent; Anita Parbhakar-Fox; Peter D Erskine

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.143673

Treasure from trash: Mining critical metals from waste and unconventional sources

Sci Total Environ. 2021 Mar 1:758:143673. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.143673. Epub 2020 Nov 21.

Authors

Antony van der Ent¹, Anita Parbhakar-Fox², Peter D Erskine³

Affiliations

¹ Centre for Mined Land Rehabilitation, Sustainable Minerals Institute, The University of Queensland, Queensland, Australia. Electronic address: a.vanderent@uq.edu.au.
² W.H. Bryan Mining & Geology Research Centre, Sustainable Minerals Institute, The University of Queensland, Queensland, Australia.
³ Centre for Mined Land Rehabilitation, Sustainable Minerals Institute, The University of Queensland, Queensland, Australia.

PMID: 33261870
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.143673

Abstract

To meet future technological demands of our growing global community new sources of industry critical metals need to be identified. To meet these demands, extracting minerals from larger, lower grade deposits across most commodities is required, which in turn generates ever increasing amounts of mine wastes. We propose that agromining could be used to enables access to unconventional resources not viable using existing minerals processing techniques. This innovative technique relies on so-called hyperaccumulator plants to bio-concentrate high levels of metals into living biomass which can then be extracted from the harvested bio-ore. Producing critical metals, such as nickel, cobalt and thallium, efficiently and sustainably using agromining appears to be well within reach, but this technology needs industrial champions to develop demonstration sites that are scaled appropiately in areas where it is feasible.

Keywords: Agromining; Bio-ore; Hyperaccumulator; Mining; Rehabilitation.