Was scrapping the proposed coal mine in Cumbria the right decision?

Plans to build the UK's first deep coal mine in more than 30 years have been quashed. after two campaign groups brought legal action over the previous government's decision to grant planning permission for the site near Whitehaven in Cumbria. They claimed the government did not take into consideration the environmental impact of burning the coal extracted but lawyers for West Cumbria Mining said there had been "repeated mischaracterisation" of the plans and the development would have a "broadly neutral effect on the global release of greenhouse gas".

Source: Coal Action Network

Reacting to the High Court judgement, former Conservative MP for Workington, Mark Jenkinson, said the project would have created "well paid jobs" and "huge opportunities for the local supply chain, "If we don't mine coking coal here - which is required for our steel industry, among others, for the foreseeable future - then we import it from countries like Russia." He said that "there is nothing on the horizon" to replace coking coal in the process for making steel,

West Cumbria Mining planned to mine under the seabed to extract around 2.7m tonnes of metallurgical coal annually, solely for use within industry and not for power stations. Approval for the mine was given in December 2022 and although the coal would not be used for power generation critics say the mine would undermine climate targets and the demand for coking coal is declining. 

Supporters claimed that the mine would create jobs and reduce the need to import coal. However there is now a strong argument that there is no significant need for the coal in the UK as the blast furnaces in Port Talbot, Wales, have been shut down by the owners. Tata Steel, in favour of electric arc furnaces. These, however, will not produce 'virgin steel' from iron ore but will be used to melt and recycle scrap.

It may seem paradoxical, but mining of coal is essential in the quest for a zero-carbon society. Metallurgical coal, which would be mined in Cumbria, is required to produce steel, but it is rarely appreciated that fossil fuels, whether from coal or gas, will also be needed for some time yet, in order to help build the electric vehicles and wind turbines of the future. There just aren't enough renewable sources of energy at present to provide the energy to mine and extract the necessary raw materials and to manufacture the multitude of renewable energy devices and electric vehicles which are proposed. The most essential material is steel, the ubiquitous alloy used in construction. A single wind-turbine, for instance, requires well over 300 tonnes of steel, and to make steel we need metallurgical coal from which we produce coke for the iron blast furnaces.

Although environmental considerations are driving the introduction of new technologies, blast furnace related technologies for the production of pig-iron are still by far the most common methods for ironmaking and are predicted to be the single largest process until 2050. The blast furnace is reliant on a plentiful supply of coke, the hot air blast oxidising the coke to carbon monoxide, which reduces the iron ore, hematite, to pig-iron, containing around 4% carbon. Liquid pig-iron is then refined in oxygen converters, which reduce the carbon content to a value dependent on the use for the steel, 'mild steel', which is used for general engineering applications, having a carbon content of round 0.2%.

It is unlikely that technologies that do not use liquid pig iron will dominate in the coming decades, and ore, coal and limestone will remain the main raw materials used to make pig-iron. Existing technologies that produce liquid pig-iron outside the blast furnace are considerably inferior to blast furnace smelting with respect to productivity and integral total fuel consumption, which includes the fuel costs incurred to produce coke, agglomerated ore-bearing materials, hot blast air, and oxygen. The blast furnace process is also the leading technology in terms of the scale of production and has the lowest production costs. It remains the most effective thermal heat transfer reactor for ironmaking and metallurgical coal remains essential for iron and steelmaking. 

The transition to a low-carbon world does, however, require a transformation in the way iron and steel are produced and direct reduction of iron ore with hydrogen is perhaps the most promising. Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the Universe, and although it is present in its elemental form in stars, it is always found combined with other elements on earth, such that its production can be expensive. 

Hydrogen can be produced through several methods, each requiring energy to drive the chemical reaction to isolate hydrogen from, most commonly, water, coal, methane, or ammonia. Around 95% of hydrogen at present comes from fossil fuels, the remainder being the more attractive 'green hydrogen' which is produced by electrolysing water, which is expensive and requires a great deal of energy, preferably supplied by renewable sources. Green hydrogen can be used to 'store' energy, wind turbines, for instance, being used to electrolyse water when they are not needed for power generation, such as at night.

The green transition is not straightforward, and it is evident that fossil fuels will be needed for some time yet. So the question here is, was it the right decision to quash the Cumbrian coal mining application, given that the UK requirements for metallurgical coal have decreased? Or should we mine it, as it can be exported to countries which do need it, creating jobs in the process?

Fundamental limits of the supply chain of critical metals and minerals within the circular economy

There is a lot of talk about greening society, greening the supply chain, circular economy etc. The question that needs to be answered is how green is all of this and what shade of green (or grey) is achievable.

This will be the question discussed by Prof. Markus Reuter in his keynote lecture at Critical Minerals '24 in Cape Town in November. The key role of metallurgy and minerals processing will be discussed in applying simulation methods and theory to understand the greenness of systems and in fact what the limits are of the system.

Various cases will be shown, covering process metallurgy, recycling, design for recycling, etc., analysing the system on the basis of exergy and footprinting the system. A large body of published information will be highlighted, rooted in industrial practice, to illustrate how far the industry has also progressed to address green issues fundamentally.

Markus Reuter has been a long time consultant to MEI's sustainability conferences. He is Chief Expert and  Professor at the SMS group GmbH, Germany, Adjunct Professor on Recycling at Curtin University, Australia and Honorary Professor at the Technical University Bergakademie Freiberg, Germany, where he was a Director for almost five years. 

Markus has been ranked number 8 in the world in the field of recycling by ScholarGPS, which ranks scholars whose works are of profound impact and of utmost quality (posting of 9th May 2024). In 2014, he received the 1st Prize Publication Award for Handbook of Recycling, by the International Solid Waste Association.

The keynote will provide a great opening to MEI's inaugural Critical Minerals conference, which has a full 2-day programme immediately following Process Mineralogy '24.

#CriticalMinerals24

Mine waste transformation through characterisation- a mission to re-imagine waste management

Meeting the needs of the energy transition is a once-in-a-generation challenge like no other before. To meet the projected metal demand to support this, the global community will produce increased volumes of mine waste requiring best practice management. Mine waste is suspected to be a host of critical metals and minerals. If identified as significant resources of critical metals, remining waste can support global effort to adopt circular economy principles. 

Whilst a straightforward proposition, practical investigations show this is anything but. Mine waste materials are complex and heterogenous, potentially originating from multiple ore sources, processed by different methods, and subjected to weathering under changing climatic conditions. 

In a keynote lecture at Process Mineralogy '24, Anita Parbhakar-Fox will show how a sampling campaign has been undertaken in Australia to identify critical metal resources in waste. Results demonstrate that mineralogical characterisation is the key to identifying valorisation options for not only recovering critical metals/minerals, but to also reduce associated environmental legacy issues and mining footprints.  

Anita Parbhakar-Fox is a Principal Research Fellow in Applied Geochemistry and the founding leader of the Mine Waste Transformation through Characterisation group at the University of Queensland, Australia. Anita's group focuses on mine waste characterisation to improve mine planning and waste management practices. She has developed new tests and protocols for improving waste characterisation and is also involved in identifying remediation options for abandoned/ historical mine sites. Currently, Anita is leading government and industry funded projects characterising a range of mine waste materials across Australia to evaluate their economic potential with a focus on critical metal recovery.

Anita will also be involved with Critical Minerals '24 which follows Process Mineralogy '24, presenting a paper on the reprocessing of a Tasmanian mine dam containing 38 Mt of pyritic tailings to recover critical minerals. She is also co-author of another paper at Critical Minerals '24, to be presented by her husband Nathan Fox, which will explore rare earth element opportunities in Australia’s mine waste and unconventional sources.

#ProcessMineralogy24
#CriticalMinerals24

June summary: zero carbon by 2030?

My highlight in June was the week spent in Cape Town with Amanda and Jon for Physical Separation '24 and Mill Circuits '24, both very enjoyable conferences, made even more enjoyable by the very unseasonable winter weather in Cape Town. 

A warm and sunny evening for the Physical Separation '24 sundowner,
with Cornish delegate Dave Goldburn of Holman-Wilfley

Our decision to hold these conferences in Cape Town, rather than in Falmouth, was vindicated by the awful train journey I experienced returning to Cornwall from London, where due to the usual industrial action the train was packed, with people standing in the aisles. So it will be good to be back at the Vineyard Hotel again in November for Process Mineralogy '24 and Critical Minerals '24 and to enjoy the amazing views each morning from the hotel bedroom window.

Luckily, when my flight was approaching Cape Town International it flew over Claremont and Newlands, with the same view of the mountain, but from a different perspective, looking over to the city centre. What a location for a conference!

Following the conferences Jon and I returned home to Luxembourg and Falmouth respectively, while Amanda took the short flight to Namibia for the SAIMM's Rare Earths conference, making the most of the pre-conference time to explore Namibia's amazing dunes. Her report on the conference will be published soon.

The following week Amanda was in Luxembourg, visiting Jon and family.

Amanda with her niece and nephew

The Cape Town conferences unfortunately clashed with the UK Mining Conference in Cornwall, which was held, as last year, in Falmouth. By all accounts it was another great event, attended by 370 delegates, with 30 exhibitors. Although I was unable to report on the conference, Carly Leonidas, the European Editor of Engineering & Mining Journal has provided an excellent report, highlighting how key UK battery metal projects are edging closer to production.

A packed Princess Pavilion, Falmouth

In June the race was on for the next Government, which will be decided on Thursday. Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer's proposals for a publicly-owned company called Great British Energy to invest in clean and renewable energy are a central plank of Labour’s plans to entirely remove fossil fuels from UK electricity production by 2030, five years earlier than current government plans. But some energy analysts don’t think electricity decarbonisation as soon as 2030 is practically achievable as it would require the total installed UK offshore wind generating capacity to more than triple over the next six years. Solar electricity generation and onshore wind generating capacity would need to roughly double to replace the electricity currently provided by gas-fired power stations. 

According to the experts, and reported by the BBC, one of the biggest obstacles in terms of hitting the 2030 target is not the cost of installing new solar panels and wind turbines, but the practical difficulty, due to planning regulations and local opposition, of upgrading the UK’s electricity grid network. No mention here, however, of the obvious fact that when the wind doesn't blow or the sun doesn't shine, gas is going to be needed, along with the steady supply of nuclear energy, to keep the lights on (posting of 11 December 2023). Unless, of course, when the wind blows strongly, and the sun shines brightly, the intention is to store excess energy in mega-batteries or produce an attractive energy source, green hydrogen?

And as usual, there is not a single mention of where the critical minerals, necessary for renewables, will come from, or of the huge amount of energy needed to mine and process them.  As noted in the posting of 27 May renewable energy technologies, clean water, wastewater, electricity cannot exist without the most critical of metals, copper, which is likely to be the key commodity in the next few decades. Solar and wind farms, often spread out over large areas, require more copper per unit of power produced than do centralised coal and gas-fired power stations. Electric vehicles use more than twice as much copper as petrol cars do.

Although more copper is being recycled, it won’t be enough to cover demand, so the only alternative is to mine more and to develop secondary processing routes, as much copper and other critical metals are tied up in the tailings dumps of many years ago. It would be good to see some of the energy experts and politicians at Critical Minerals '24 in November!!

New Book: Critical Materials and Sustainability Transition

The growing demand for critical minerals is primarily driven by the energy transition and the rapid expansion of technologies such as smartphones, electric vehicles, wind turbines, and solar panels. As societies transition towards cleaner and more sustainable energy solutions, the need for these minerals has intensified. However, the extraction and processing of many critical minerals often involve complex geological conditions, high environmental impact, and challenges in terms of supply chain reliability.

As the demand for critical minerals increases, so do concerns about their environmental and social impact. The extraction of these minerals often involves practices that can harm ecosystems and local communities. Efforts are being made to develop more sustainable mining techniques and recycling processes to mitigate these impacts.

MEI's Critical Minerals '24 in Cape Town in November will explore innovative methods and flowsheets for processing critical minerals from primary and secondary sources and by recycling, particularly from waste electrical and electronic equipment, the most challenging aspect in aiming for a circular economy.

The importance of critical minerals is highlighted in a new book Critical Materials and Sustainability Transition, edited by Arda Işıldar, Eric D. van Hullebusch and Donald Huisingh, which investigates various aspects of critical mineral governance in the context of sustainability transition. Perspectives around the critical metal requirements of sustainability transition in a forward-looking manner are given and the following questions are discussed:

• What role do the critical raw materials play in the transition to a sustainable economy and energy systems transformation?
• What are the bottlenecks in achieving a sustainable critical material supply?
• How do the critical minerals enable renewable energy transition and sustainable development? What is their role in the sustainability transition?
• How is mineral criticality assessed? And how critical are minerals? What are some regional differences in terms of critical mineral availability, processing capacity, and the supply chain?
• What strategy should be followed in deciding between primary raw materials and secondary raw materials in supplying critical raw materials for the transition to a sustainable economy?
• What is the (known) critical material budget, and how does it fit with the climate pledges?

The authors of the chapters of this book take a multi-perspective approach and provide insights from industrial ecology, environmental engineering, and sustainable management of natural resources. The information provided will help readers to understand critical metal requirements of present and future key technologies and will help societies to develop and implement sustainable supply strategies.

#CriticalMinerals24

July's announcements of major green initiatives in the UK

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak dropped a green bombshell in July by issuing hundreds of new development licences for North Sea oil and gas companies. He said that the new licences will cut Britain’s carbon footprint, as domestic production is responsible for just a quarter of the emissions of imported liquified natural gas. Alongside the new oil and gas licences, Mr Sunak confirmed millions of pounds will be invested in carbon capture and storage facilities in North East Scotland and the Humber.

Carbon capture and storage
Source: The Times

Labour, however, has promised to block new oil and gas developments if it wins next year's election, saying it would focus instead on investments in renewable sources such as wind and nuclear power, which have supplied about 30% and 15% respectively of the UK's energy over the past year. It's a shame that investment in nuclear wasn't made several years ago as this could have been the ideal source of energy needed for the transition to renewables, such as wind and solar power. In the meantime is the PM's decision a good one, as fossil fuels are going to be needed for a long time yet to supply the energy to mine and process the required metals, and to actually build the renewables, and oil and gas are better options than coal? Gas has supplied 38% of the country's needs over the past year.

July has also witnessed long-awaited and transformative developments for the UK critical minerals industry, such as Tata Group’s $4 billion investment into the construction of a gigafactory here in the UK (see posting of July 21st) and the recent green light given to Green Lithium to build the UK’s first large-scale lithium refinery in Teesside. 

Currently the European EV and energy storage sectors are wholly reliant on lithium produced by Chinese refineries. These existing producers are environmentally unfriendly, emitting large volumes of CO₂. This dependence will be further amplified by a continued increase in demand for battery chemicals. Green Lithium's solution is a UK lithium refinery that can serve the European market in an environmentally-friendly way whilst providing a stable and secure supply of lithium hydroxide to European cathode producers, battery manufacturers and original equipment manufacturers.

And in the same week that the PM made his announcement, there was news that a new research centre at Imperial College London will develop sustainable routes to materials for a green future.  

The Rio Tinto Centre for Future Materials at Imperial College will transform current mineral extraction approaches to support the global transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy and will act as the hub for collaboration with other leading global institutions. It will drive a new sustainable model for materials production, supporting the mining and materials processing industry in developing new sustainable techniques and technologies to provide the critical materials the world needs for the energy transition.

The global transition to renewable energy generation, use and storage will require a significant growth in the production and supply of critical materials including metals and rare earth elements. These will be needed to support the scale up of electrification such as wind turbines, electric vehicles, and green hydrogen production. The mining industry plays a vital role in increasing the supply of these materials. Global governments have recognised these materials as the key to enabling a rapid, just and sustainable transition to a decarbonised society. However, the extraction of the earth’s resources is itself energy and water intensive and can be ecologically damaging. A sustainable future requires dramatic and rapid change in this industry.

Prof. Jan Cilliers

The Rio Tinto Centre for Future Materials will deliver research programs to transform the way vital materials are produced, used and recycled and make them more environmentally, economically and socially sustainable. Rio Tinto has committed $150 million over ten years to create the centre, which will be led from the Department of Earth Science and Engineering and the Inaugural Director will be Professor Jan Cilliers, Chair in Mineral Processing. It will bring together diverse, inter-disciplinary teams to deliver innovative, and transformative solutions with environment, society, and governance at their core.

Key partners will be announced in the coming months with a plan to launch collaborative centre programmes in early 2024. MEI is particularly interested in this endeavour and is proud that Prof Cilliers, the new Director, will act as an advisor to MEI's new conference, Critical Minerals '24, which will be held in Cape Town in November next year. Details of this conference, which will have particular emphasis on the recycling of critical minerals, will be announced shortly.

@barrywills

Biomining '23: a summary of the technical presentations

Biomining '23, MEI's 11th International Symposium on Biomining was held at the National Maritime Museum Cornwall in Falmouth, UK, from June 5-6, 2023. It was organised in consultation with Prof. Sue Harrison, of the University of Cape Town, South Africa and Dr. Chris Bryan, of BRGM, France, with media Partners International Mining and Minerals Engineering and Industry Advocates the Critical Minerals Association.

Following is a summary of the presentations made in the technical sessions over the two days.  The draft papers associated with the presentations are available online as open access. The drafts have not been refereed, but all the presenters have been invited to submit their final papers for peer-review to a virtual special issue of Minerals Engineering.

Monday June 5th

The conference was opened this morning by MEI's Jon Wills, who welcomed the 55 delegates from 14 countries, and then the proceedings got off to a fine start with a keynote from Axel Schippers, who is highly respected in the field of biohydrometallurgy. He has been with the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (FIGNR) in Germany since 2007 and now heads the Geomicrobiology unit. In 2006 he qualified as lecturer in microbiology and geochemistry at the Leibniz University of Hannover and was appointed as Professor in 2011. His keynote lecture showed how biohydrometallurgy offers various process options including bioleaching, biooxidation, biomineralization, bioprecipitation, biosorption and bioelectrochemistry for metal recovery from primary and secondary resources.

Axel was a co-author of the next presentation, by his FIGNR colleague Stefanie Hetz, an environmental microbiologist with focus on nitrogen, sulfur and iron cycles. She did research at the Universities of Bayreuth and Hannover before moving to FIGNR in 2021 and her presentation explored options for stirred-tank reactor and column bioleaching of nickel and cobalt from Brazilian laterite ores.

Stefanie Hetz and Axel Schippers

Ana Santos has presented work at previous MEI biomining conferences as a PhD student at Bangor University, UK, from where she graduated in 2018 before working as a post-doctoral researcher until 2021. She joined London's Natural History Museum in February 2022 as a Research Fellow in Geomicrobiology and she has been working on the development of novel and improved biotechnologies to extract base and rare-earth metals from mine wastes and from new, untapped resources such as marine polymetallic nodules, the subject of her presentation.

Ana Santos (right) with Paula Morais of University of Coimbra, Portugal

Paul Norris, of the University of Exeter, UK is currently biohydrometallurgy consultant for GSL in Cornwall, following fifty years of research at the Universities of London and Warwick, with over 80 publications concerning microbiology of extreme environments, acidophilic microorganisms and biohydrometallurgy. This morning he discussed the continuous bioreactor processing of a nickel sulfide concentrate with moderately thermophilic bacteria and archaea.

Paul Norris (left) with Dave Dew (UK), Anders Sand (Sweden)
and Anne-Gwenaelle Guezennec (France)

Ivan Nancucheo (left) of the Universidad San Sebastián, Spain, has a PhD degree in microbiology from Bangor University, where he was a post-doc in a bioreductive dissolution of laterites project led by Professor Barrie Johnson. He worked in Brazil at Vale Mining Company for three years and during this period he was a visiting scholar at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He presented work on the recovery of “pure” CuS nanoparticles using biogenic H2S from a complex bioleach liquor.

Alfonso Mazuelos is a Senior Lecturer in Chemical Engineering at the University of Seville, Spain and he discussed continuous ferrous iron biooxidation in a packed-bed bioreactor at very extreme acidity conditions.

Blanca Perdigones is a PhD student at the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Seville. She holds a degree in Biochemistry from the Universities of Seville and Malaga, a Master's degree in Water Quality Sciences and Techniques from the University of Granada and a Master's degree in Advanced Studies in Chemistry from the University of Seville. Blanca has collaborated in research in international environments such as in Chile and Argentina. She is currently a grant holder in the European RAWMINA project within the framework of the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, where she is developing her thesis on the starting-up of bioleaching bioreactors. She presented work on adaptation of an iron oxidizing culture to extremely high Fe concentration by a programmed fed batch bioreactor.

Blanca and Alfonso

The presentation from Laura Castro (left), an Assistant Professor at Complutense University of Madrid, Spain took us up to the lunch break. She discussed the isolation of a halotolerant and iron oxidizing bacterium from Rio Tinto, Spain, with potential for seawater bioleaching.

Paul Norris, in his second presentation of the day, discussed the carbon dioxide requirements and fixation by various mineral-sulfide oxidizing bacteria.

Didi Makaula is a scientist in the Biometallurgy Division at Mintek, South Africa. He also works in partnership with commercial organisations to improve the growth of bioleaching cultures at different temperature profiles and he presented work aimed at bridging the temperature gap from thermotolerant mesophilic to moderate thermophilic conditions. The insights gained from these studies will assist with the selection, adaptation and maintenance of the best performing cultures in these higher temperature profiles.  

Didi Makaula (right) with Dave Dew (UK) and Nokubonga Zulu (South Africa)

Megan Barnett (left) has been at the British Geological Survey since 2015. Her biomining research had focused on REE, but she also has interests in the sustainable extraction of other critical metals. Megan discussed changing REE leaching profiles by bioleaching with methylotrophs.

Fernando Vera is a PhD student at the Pontifical Catholic University of Valparaíso, Chile and he explained how copper smelters currently deal with arsenic contamination in processed ores. Chemical processes for removing arsenics are expensive and ineffective, and he evaluated the biological treatment of arsenic in effluents from a copper smelter gas washing plant using a consortium of iron-oxidizing mesophiles (35 °C) adapted to As(III). 

Fernando (left) during one of the morning breaks

Ishaaq Hajee holds an MSc in chemistry, having majored in chemistry and biochemistry at the undergraduate level. He then entered the mining industry and has worked at refineries, froth flotation plants, and various chrome mines across Africa. He is now a PhD student at the University of Cape Town, and presented his work which involves using naturally occurring bacterial phenomena to help prevent acid rock drainage, a process which threatens to pollute the already scarce water resources in South Africa.

Ishaaq (right) with UCT colleagues Sue Harrison and Msimelelo Gcayiya

After completing her BSc and MSc studies in Life Science & Technology at the Technical University of Delft, Charlotte (Lot) van der Graaf went to Wageningen University & Research, both in the Netherlands, for her PhD research. There she focused on microbial and chemical sulfide production at acidic conditions, with the aim of improving process economics of the treatment of metalliferous waste streams (acid mine drainage, metallurgy waters) through metal sulfide precipitation. Lot is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cadiz, Spain, where she studies metallic copper formation in acid mine drainage biofilms found in the Rio Tinto area (Huelva, Spain), the subject of her presentation.

Lot van der Graaf with Stefanie Hetz (Germany)

Bailee Johnson completed her B. Eng in Materials Engineering at McGill University, Canada. Throughout her Bachelors degree, she worked in Prof. Kristian Waters' mineral processing laboratory as an undergraduate research assistant; as a result of her work, she has contributing authorship on two published academic papers as well as a first-place-winning technical report presented at Canadian Mineral Processors 2018. On graduation, Bailee worked for CiDRA Minerals Processing and supported the development and scale-up of a novel mineral processing technique. Her work took her to concentration plants across North and South America; she served as onsite project lead for two of these projects. Now completing her MSc at McGill University, she is a CMP 2021 Scholarship recipient and McGill Graduate Excellence Fellow for 2021 and her paper, the last of the day, was an investigation of froth flotation of municipal wastewater treatment plant biosolids for phosphorus separation.

Bailee with McGill colleague Ozan Kokkilic 

After a long day it was good to get out into the warm Cornish sunshine for the 3 mile guided coastal path walk, followed by drinks at the Chain Locker pub (see Monday at Biomining '23).

Tuesday June 6th

Karen Hudson-Edwards got the day underway with a keynote lecture reviewing the biomining of copper and other technology metals. Karen is Professor in Sustainable Mining at the Camborne School of Mines and Environment and Sustainability Institute at the University of Exeter, UK. She was the 2012/3 Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland’s Hallimond Lecturer, the 2016 Australian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy New Zealand's Visiting Lecturer and the 2019 European Association of Geochemistry’s Distinguished Lecturer.

Karen (right) with Sue Harrison and Carmen Falagan at Monday's sundowner at the Chain Locker

Klemens Kremser is a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Natural Resources and Life Science Vienna and the Austrian Centre of Industrial Biotechnology. He discussed Project FuLIBatteR, future lithium-ion battery recycling for the recovery of critical raw materials.

Klemens with Daniel Kupka (Slovakia)

Lidia Garcia Saez (left) is a PhD Researcher at the Universitat Politècnica De Catalunya, Spain, working on the recovery of valuable metals from lithium-ion batteries. Her presentation was on a multi-step bio-based process for recovering valuable metals from spent lithium-ion batteries without extreme pH and temperature.

After graduating in metallurgy in Iran, Mohammad Khoshkhoo worked for a few years there in the mining sector before moving to Luleå, Sweden in 2007, where he completed his master and doctorate studies in process metallurgy. He is now a Senior Development Engineer at Boliden Mineral, Sweden, and he presented results of a pilot campaign for the recovery of battery metals from low-grade mining residues via stirred tank bioleaching.

Mohammad with Blanca Perdigones (Spain)

Jens Markowski is a scientific assistant at the Brandenburg University of Technology, Germany and he described his experiences in the commissioning of a bioleaching plant for the recovery of gold from printed circuit boards.

Jens with Stoyan Gaydardzhiev (Belgium)

Anna Sieber holds a master's degree of Biotechnology from the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU) in Vienna, Austria. After working for 2 years in industrial research, she started her PhD at K1-MET in cooperation with BOKU. Her research focuses on the recovery of metals from various waste stream and her presentation looked at the application of spent brewer’s yeast as a selective biosorbent for metal recovery from polymetallic waste streams.

Rebeka Frueholz is also representing K1-MET in Austria and is currently pursuing a PhD in the field of bioleaching using thermophilic bacteria. She discussed zinc removal from metallurgical dusts with sulfur-oxidizing bacteria.

Rebecca and Anna with their K1-Met colleague Lalropula Lalropula (right) and Stuart Wagland (UK)

Eva Pakostova graduated with a PhD in Biochemistry at the Masaryk University, Czech Republic, in 2016. She then worked as a post-doc at Bangor University, developing a new mining concept for extracting metals from deep ore deposits, using biotechnology. During another post-doc at the University of Waterloo, Canada she contributed with her microbiological expertise to the development of improved strategies for managing mine-waste environments and implementation of the innovative remediation technologies at an industrial scale. Eva joined Coventry University, UK, as Assistant Professor in 2020. She develops novel and improved biotechnologies to extract base and precious metals from primary ores and secondary (mine and electronic wastes) sources. In her presentation, co-authored with Neil Rowson of Bunting-Redditch, UK, she discussed the bioleaching of metals from automotive catalysts, focusing on magnetic separation and base metal removal using acidophilic bacteria.

Eva (right) with Daniel Kupka, Lenka Hagarova and Zuzana Bartova of Slovakia

Antonio David Dorado is a researcher at the Universitat Politècnica De Catalunya, Spain. He has a UPC Doctorate Extraordinary Award in Natural Resources and Environment and has spent time abroad, with postdoctoral studies at the University of Nueva Gales del Sur, Sydney, Australia and the PUC of Valparaíso, Chile. He described a high productivity bioprocess for obtaining metallic copper from printed circuit boards.

Antonio David relaxing at the Chain Locker sundowner

MEI conference consultant Sue Harrison, Director at the Centre For Bioprocess Enineering Research, University of Cape Town, South Africa, needs little introduction. She discussed the bioleaching of printed circuit boards in a continuous two-stage system including a re-circulating packed-bed reactor for improved regeneration of ferric ion.

Lalropuia Lalropuia currently works as a PhD Researcher at K1-MET, Austria and his research focuses on bioleaching of critical metals from spent lithium-ion batteries, the subject of his presentation. Lalropuia has a bachelor's degree in Mining Engineering from Bhagwant University, India and a master's degree in Advanced Mineral Resource Development from TU Bergakademie Freiberg, Germany and Montan University Leoben, Austria.

Carmen Falagan has been working in biomining for the past years in the European project NEMO at the University of Exeter before moving to the University of Portsmouth as a lecturer in Environmental Microbiology. She is interested in bioremediation and in developing new bioleaching approaches for mine tailings to minimise the impact of mining in the environment. Her presentation evaluated a pilot scale study for base metals recovery from low grade sulfidic residue ore.

Stoyan Gaydardzhiev also needs little introduction, as he is a familiar face at MEI Conferences. He is Professor and Head of the Mineral Processing and Recycling Unit at the University of Liege, Belgium, involved in various EU, national and regional research projects in the area of the circular economy and recycling and valorisation of metals. Taking us to the lunch break, he discussed the bioleaching of black mass from spent LiBs.

The final session began with a presentation from Douglas Pino Herrera, a process engineer/researcher at BRGM, France. He has a PhD in Environmental Technology from the University Gustave Eiffel in Paris, and he discussed bioleaching process development and optimization to recover critical raw materials from sulfidic mining wastes.

Douglas (3rd left) at the Chain Locker sundowner

Paula Morais. of the University of Coimbra, Portugal, works in environmental microbiology and she is the curator of the UCCCB Bacterial Culture Collection which constitutes an infrastructure of the University of Coimbra. Her presentation looked at biopolymer stabilization of bioleached mine residue to produce technosol.

Another speaker who needs little introduction is Barrie Johnson, Professor Emeritus at Bangor and Coventry Universities and a Scientific Associate at the Natural History Museum, London. He compared two bioleaching protocols for extracting and recovering nickel from pyrrhotite waste.

Barrie Johnson (left) at the welcoming reception

Zuzana Bártová is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Geotechnics at the Slovak Academy of Sciences, Slovakia. She studied biology as her major at the University of Pavol Jozef Šafárik in Košice, Slovakia. Her main focus is on bioleaching processes using microorganisms, bacterial growth kinetics and raw materials acquisition from acid mine drainage and she discussed metal recovery and remediation of mine water effluent from a siderite deposit at Nižná Slaná, eastern Slovakia.

Zuzana (right) at the Chain Locker sundowner

Jaeheon Lee (left) is an associate professor in the department of mining engineering at Colorado School of Mines, USA. Prior to that he worked for Newmont and Barrick as a corporate metallurgical engineer and held the position as a faculty in the department of mining and geological engineering at the University of Arizona. He discussed the role of biohydrometallurgy for mine tailings repurposing and valorization.

Anne-Gwenaelle Guezennec, of BRGM, France is a well known expert in biohydrometallurgy and more specifically in bioleaching process design. She highlighted pilot-scale demonstrations of innovative biohydrometallurgy for sustainable valorisation of mining waste.

Anne-Gwenaelle (centre) at the welcoming reception

Ipek Tezyapar Kara (left) is a PhD Researcher at Cranfield University, UK. Ipek has a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Engineering from Kocaeli University, Turkey and she completed her M.Sc. degree at the same university in 2019. She discussed the bioleaching of metal ions from Basic Oxygen Furnace sludge and dust by Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans.

The final presentation of the conference was deferred from yesterday, as Nokubonga Given Zulu was delayed due to the travel disruption. Given was born and raised in South Africa, in a small village in KwaZulu Natal. She is a graduate in Extraction Metallurgy from the University of Johannesburg (UJ) and is currently pursuing an MEng in Extraction Metallurgy at UJ, majoring in bioflotation and bioleaching.  She has also worked at the Kibali Gold Mine (Barrick Gold Corporation) as a trainee metallurgist. Her presentation investigated the application of Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans in biomodification and pre-concentration of base metal sulphides prior to flotation.

Nokubonga looking after the drinks at the Chain Locker!

After a brief summary of the conference from Prof. Sue Harrison, MEI's Amanda Wills thanked everyone involved with the conference and invited everyone to join us in Cape Town in two years time for Biomining '25, before we all adjourned for a farewell Cornish Cream Tea, making sure that the jam was put on the scones before the cream!

We would greatly appreciate your views on the conference via comments to this posting.  

All the photos on the blog postings, and more, are in a Biomining '23 Album. Please feel free to download photos for your personal use. If you would like to use any photos on a company website, please acknowledge the source (MEI Blog).

#Biomining23   @barrywills

If we are to 'save the planet' we need more mining, not less

A few weeks' ago UN chief Antonio Guterres said that a major new report on climate change is a "survival guide for humanity". The report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the scientific body that advises the UN on rising temperatures, was agreed on by all governments involved. At a meeting in Switzerland to agree their findings, climate scientists warned a key global temperature goal will likely be missed and their report lays out how rapid cuts to fossil fuels can avert the worst effects of climate change.

In response to the findings, Antonio Guterres said that all countries should bring forward their net zero plans by a decade, from the previously agreed deadline of 2050 (posting of 21 July 2019). Many who say this cannot be done argue that the reasons are essentially political,  but forget, or are unaware, that mining is the most important industry for the eventual attainment of net zero, whether this be in 2040, 2050 or further in the future.

Many environmental groups have ludicrously called for a ban on mining altogether, as it is one of the world's greatest producers of CO2 and a massive consumer of energy, and indeed a number of new mining developments have had to cease recently due to environmental concerns.

Although many major mining companies are striving for net zero carbon, in many cases by up to 30-40% in the next 10-15 years, and to place themselves in a net-zero emissions position by 2050, it is true that the minerals industry is a major source of CO2 emissions. The cement industry alone is the source of about 8% of the world's CO2 emissions, and cement is the most widely used man-made material in existence, being second only to water as the most-consumed resource on the planet. But, while cement - the key ingredient in concrete - has shaped much of our built environment, its massive carbon footprint is such that, if the cement industry were a country, it would be the third largest emitter in the world, behind China and the US. It contributes more CO2 than aviation fuel (2.5%) and is not far behind the global agriculture business (12%). We look forward to Prof. Jannie van Deventer's keynote lecture at June's Sustainable Minerals '23, where he will propose a pathway for the adoption of new technology to decarbonise cement and concrete.

Despite the high carbon footprint of mining it is essential for the green transition, in the manufacture of renewable sources such as wind turbines and electric vehicles. Many metals and non-metals are essential in their manufacture and it must be remembered that huge amounts of energy are required just to mine and extract these materials so non-renewable sources of energy, either fossil fuels or nuclear, will be needed for some time in the transition.

The lithium-ion battery is the heart of an EV and the figures below show estimates of the commodities in a typical battery pack, and how the demand on commodities would change if all cars became electric by 2050. In order for all vehicles to be electric, we will need around 400 extra graphite, Li, Ni, and Co mines by 2035, an EV requiring about six times the mineral content of a comparable international combustion engine vehicle.

Source: UBS estimates

The most important metal in wind turbines and electric vehicles is copper, which is at the heart of either producing electricity or providing motive power. A large turbine requires around 4.5 tonnes of copper, and electric vehicles up to 100 kg. Average mined copper grades fell from 1.31% in 2000 to 0.94% in 2018, raising operating costs and slowing the enthusiasm to develop new mines, exacerbated by ESG concerns. Last month Chile, which accounts for a quarter of the world’s mined copper, posted its lowest monthly production in six years. Codelco said this will only get worse this year as it strives to tap new areas of its aging deposits after decades of under-investment.

When Cornwall was the world's biggest producer of copper in the mid 19th century, worldwide production was around 60,000 tonnes. Now it is well over 20 million tonnes of mined copper, even though Europe, for example, recycles around 50% of its copper. 

In 2021 the world consumption of copper was over 25 million tonnes, and it is predicted that demand for copper could nearly double by 2050. The interesting graphic below shows that over the next 27 years the world will demand nearly twice the volume of copper that the world has produced over the last 3000 years!

So the minerals industry is crucial to achieving these goals, and mineral processing is at the forefront of the battle. What would we do without froth flotation, probably the world's most important technology, as without it the essential metals, such as copper, nickel, cobalt, manganese would be classed as precious metals. This is why we feel that our flotation series of conferences, such as November's Flotation '23 are of prime importance in helping ensure a plentiful supply of these and other metals and minerals as grades decline and ores become more complex.

It is ironic that in a few days time I will be on my way to Cape Town, for Comminution '23, which begins next Monday. In many hard-rock mine sites, comminution constitutes over 50% of the total energy consumption, and there are claims in published papers and the popular press that comminution in the mining industry may consume upwards of 7% of global electricity use, so I look forward to lively discussion on comminution and energy next week.

If it can't be grown it must be mined!

@barrywills

Lithium and the Energy Transition

Cornish Lithium is an innovative mineral exploration and development company, focused on the environmentally and socially responsible extraction of lithium in Cornwall. The Company is progressing towards extraction of lithium from two previously considered ‘unconventional’ sources of lithium: from geothermal waters, and from mica minerals disseminated through granite rock (posting of December 9th 2021).

Through embracing new technologies to explore for and extract the lithium, Life Cycle Analyses to evaluate their projects and building in circular economy design principles to use the resources as efficiently as possible (including partnering with potential heat users at geothermal lithium sites), Cornish Lithium aims to be a global leader in responsible mineral production.

So we are pleased to have, as a keynote speaker at Sustainable Minerals '23, Lucy Crane, the ESG and Sustainability Manager for Cornish Lithium. 

Lucy, who will review lithium and the energy transition, is a geologist by training with a background in grassroots exploration. She is a strong advocate for the standardisation of sustainable and responsible practices in mining, promoting these actions to the wider public, and is passionate about making the industry a more diverse place to work. She has been on the committee for Young Mining Professionals London since its inception, and is heavily involved in Women in Mining UK. She holds a degree in Earth Sciences from Oxford University, and a Masters in Mining Geology from the Camborne School of Mines.

We look forward to our involvement with Cornish Lithium at the conference.

#SustainableMinerals23