The Elements of Innovation Discovered
The Elements of Innovation Discovered
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Li-Bridge alliance unveils blueprint to build resilient US lithium battery supply chain. A wide chasm lies between where the United States is today and securing the lithium battery mineral resources and manufacturing capacity required to achieve ambitious visions of a green energy future where electric vehicles are charged with low-carbon energy. An alliance of America's national laboratories and more than 40 companies representing the entire lithium battery supply chain have...
Highly promising startup reveals first commercial-scale rare earth element refinery in the US. Rising from the ashes, an American startup that was early in the field of rare earth element separation, Phoenix Tailings, has made a brilliant comeback with the announcement of the first rare earth refinery to begin production in the United States. Founded in 2018, Boston-based Phoenix Tailings had a significant head start at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Seeing the potential...
Looking to break America's reliance on China for rare earths and critical minerals, the U.S. Department of Energy is investing $140 million to develop a facility that extracts these minerals from unconventional sources and then refines them into the metals needed for electric vehicles, renewable energy generation, and other modern technologies. These technological advances are creating new demand for a suite of minerals and metals that are often rare and in short supply. In...
While not quite as easy as whipping up a science experiment in the kitchen, a research group from the Osaka Metropolitan University Graduate School of Engineering has developed an inexpensive and eco-friendly way to condense various rare earth elements (REEs) from natural water sources using common, food-safe ingredients. The research group, led by Professor Masayuki Azuma and Associate Professor Yoshihiro Ojima, have successfully tested an adsorbent material using dry...
Global electrification of an extensive amount of industrial processes necessitates a counterbalance to the wave of new mining required for the electric vehicles and renewable energy infrastructure to meet carbon neutrality imperatives without doing further damage to the environment or simply displacing problems to other areas of the value stream. Technologies for capturing carbon dioxide are improving, but the captured CO2 still needs a rock-solid alternative to expensive...
A mine that could suck billions of tons of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and turn it to stone while also producing the nickel, cobalt, and other metals needed for zero-emissions electric vehicles would be the ultimate prize for Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk. Carbin Minerals and Carbfix, two companies developing just that type of technology, have been awarded $1 million from XPRIZE, a global future-positive movement envisioned by Musk and supported by his foundation. XPRIZE...
PNNL to verify G1 Graphite material for EV batteries; Sandia to explore innovative green tech to extract critical minerals. Toward its goal of establishing an all-American supply chain for the graphite that goes into the lithium-ion batteries powering the transition to electric vehicles charged with low-carbon energy, Graphite One Inc. is working with two U.S. Department of Energy national laboratories for the testing of active anode material made from graphite sourced from...
Canadian tech company EnviCore and nickel mining company Talon Metals are teaming up to pioneer a "full value mining" technology that converts mine waste into products for the building, construction, and infrastructure industries. This new technology has the potential to transform waste from nickel mining – called tailings – into additional products with added value for stakeholders. The resulting byproduct would replace primary raw materials in legacy cement and concrete prod...
The challenge of reducing emissions from the mining industry as a whole is ongoing and especially vital for the metals needed in renewable power and de-carbonized transportation. Taking center stage in this push, the electric vehicle space is being tasked to evaluate the overall environmental impact of EV battery life cycles. Scalable solutions are needed by 2030 for the anticipated first wave of batteries soon reaching end-of-life to keep them out of the toxic waste stream....
OZ Minerals, Rio Tinto and Boliden launch initiative that encourages entrepreneurs to reimagine mining and mine tailings. Setting aside professional rivalries for the greater good, OZ Minerals, Boliden, and Rio Tinto have joined forces to nurture new technologies that will reduce the environmental risks posed by mine tailings and extract value from these materials currently considered waste after the targeted metals are extracted. "It isn't very often that competitors come...
Chosen as one of 16 projects across 12 states, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory's "Re-Mining Red Mud Waste for CO2 Capture and Storage and Critical Element Recovery" (RMCCS-CER) project will receive $1 million in funding to advance a technology that may kill two birds with one stone in the race for critical materials. Announced in November, as part of the U.S. Department of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) Mining Innovations for Negative...
Rio Tinto, Scania are reimagining mining with more agile and efficient self-driving truck. Will the automation and electrification of mining trucks shrink the size of equipment used to dig up and haul ore and waste rock at mines around the globe? Rio Tinto believes it could and has teamed up with Scania to develop more energy-efficient and agile autonomous haul trucks at the Channar iron ore mine in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. "Rio Tinto is excited to partner...
US invests heavily into developing domestic rare earth element processing plants Despite what their name suggests, rare earths are not all that scarce. An efficient and environmentally sound technology capable of separating this tightly bonded group into the 15 individual elements of innovation, however, is truly unique and the key to establishing a rare earths supply chain in North America. There are currently no commercial-scale rare earths separation facilities in North...
Tesla and other automakers clamor for nickel suppliers with low CO2 footprint Tesla CEO Elon Musk's 2020 appeal to "please mine more nickel" served as a rallying cry for mining companies with projects positioned to deliver this critical battery metal into global markets. Going into 2022, however, the electric vehicle trailblazer's words were echoing in nearly empty warehouses as the lithium-ion batteries that power EVs are demanding more nickel than global miners can supply....
Manganese-rich battery cathode recipes could stretch the other ingredients While not as talked about as other battery ingredients such as cobalt, lithium, and nickel, manganese is an important stabilizing ingredient in the cathodes of the nickel-manganese-cobalt lithium-ion batteries widely used in electric vehicles and electronics. "Their composition helps determine how long you can talk on the phone, how far you can drive an electric car, how fast a battery can recharge and...
Coal ash, acid drainage, and tailings for future green economy As the world continues to prime itself for the global energy shift, academia, governments and the private sector are scrambling to extract the valuable minerals and metals necessary to power the low-carbon renewable future – resulting in some truly innovative and unconventional methods. In addition to the rare earths, cobalt, lithium, and other technology metals that capture headline attention, this list often miss...
Researchers from the University of Manchester might have to adopt a new title: alchemists, as they may have discovered the 21st-century version of the philosopher's stone. But unlike the mystical substance of old, the modern golden transformation is thanks to a microscopically thin material that has been growing in popularity due to its miracle-like properties – graphene. "Graphene turns rubbish into gold, literally," said Andre Geim, a professor from the University of M...
To forge the second link in a wholly North American rare earths supply chain, Vital Metals Ltd. has begun feeding ore mined from its Nechalacho project in Northwest Territories into a dense media separation plant at its new rare earths extraction facility in Saskatchewan, Canada. The first link in this REE supply chain was established when Vital began mining high-grade ore from Nechalacho last year, which made the Australia-based miner Canada's first and only producer of the...
Global mining and metals company Rio Tinto has entered into a strategic partnership that includes a roughly US$10 million (C$12.5 million) investment in Nano One Materials Corp., a British Columbia-based company that has developed a technology equivalent to the "Instant Pot" of lithium battery cathode materials. While there has been a lot of buzz about the hundreds of factories being constructed around the globe to manufacture the lithium batteries needed for the electric...
Ontario has developed a mines-to-market critical minerals strategy that leverages rich stores of critical minerals in the northern reaches of the Canadian province, the already well-established mining sector found there, and the robust manufacturing sector that has been developed in the south. "The Critical Minerals Strategy is our government's blueprint to connect industries, resources and workers in our province's north to the future of manufacturing in the south as we...
The United States Department of Energy is investing $2.2 million to explore the holy grail of clean energy projects – a domestic mine that helps to supply the nickel and copper needed to achieve America's electric vehicle and renewable energy ambitions while also pulling carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing it as a mineral in rocks for geological periods of time. Global mining company Rio Tinto is contributing another $4 million and is leading this three-year r...
A team of researchers at the University of Exeter, Minviro, the British Geological Survey, and the Circular Economy Solutions Unit has recently determined the benefits of utilizing a life cycle assessment (LCA) or "cradle to grave" evaluation in the ongoing endeavor to facilitate and improve green mining techniques. Generally used to assess the environmental impacts associated with the life cycle of commercial products, from extraction to the use and disposal of said...
Global governments and industries are setting increasingly ambitious targets for the phasing out of fossil fuel-burning automobiles in favor of electric vehicles charged with green energy. Achieving these grand climate objectives, however, is going to require an equally bold strategy to ensure there are plentiful supplies of the new generation of energy minerals and metals critical to building this revolution in the way the world generates and uses energy. The World Bank...
From electric vehicles plugged into renewable energy to smartphones connected to 5G networks, new technologies take advantage of the special properties of a suite of critical minerals and metals that are often rare and in short supply. In addition to the rare earths, cobalt, lithium, and other technology metals that capture headline attention, this list includes even more obscure mined materials such as gallium, germanium, scandium, and tellurium. While scarce, these critical...
Reminiscent of America's gilded age, the world is priming itself for a new era of technology and energy centered on the electricity that sparked the imaginations of visionaries such as Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison. This new era, however, sets aside more than a century of burning fossil fuels in favor of new clean sources of the electricity that will power human innovation into the 21st century and beyond. Solar, wind, hydro, and geothermal are but a few of the methods...
