Sustainable mining and the future of critical minerals recovery workshop

Critical minerals are at the forefront of developments in both earth and space science. Not only are they essential for the vast array of electronic devices used by our rapidly decarbonising society but they will underpin capacity for construction, infrastructure and manufacturing in extra-terrestrial settings.

In both contexts, highly efficient and low waste/zero emission technologies are central to sustainable resource utilisation. Many conventional metal recovery approaches do not meet these criteria: e.g. copper mining (the gateway to co-occurring critical elements such as Co, Mo, Re, Te and REE) generates ~50% of global tailings. Moreover, future waste generation will be exacerbated by the increasing use of low-grade ores.

Over two days, the conference will be structured around the following themes:

1. novel chemical methods for tailings wastes and e-wastes
2. novel biological methods used in space and terrestrial bio-mining for ores and tailings wastes
3. possible nature-based solutions that involve plant/algal uptake of metals
4. analytical developments