FST JOURNAL
Critical Minerals
Modern developments in electronics, batteries, electric vehicles and other technologies depend on certain critical minerals. There is a global race for these minerals as demand across the world rises, and the UK Government’s Critical Minerals strategy sets out this country will ensure sufficient supply to meet UK needs going forward. Science and Technology can make a major contribution to delivering the strategy, from more efficient extraction, effective and commercially viable recycling and new materials. This is leading to new commercial opportunities. On Monday 24th February, the Foundation hosted a discussion event in collaboration with the Geological Society, and the Royal Society of Chemistry to discuss the UK strategy, and explore how science, technology and innovation can help deliver it. Expert speakers included: Professor Paul Monks, Chief Scientific Adviser at the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero; Dr Gavin Mudd, Director of the Critical Minerals Intelligence Centre at the British Geological Survey; Dr Sarah Gordon, Chief Executive Officer at Satarla , and Co-Director of the Rio Tinto Centre for Future Materials at Imperial College and Professor Emma Kendrick, Chair of Energy Materials at the School of Metallurgy and Materials, University of Birmingham.
The debate
Following the presentations, the speakers at the event formed a panel and took questions from the audience. Some of the key points raised are shown below.
The first question from the audience was, how much does geopolitics play a part in thinking around mining of critical minerals’? Panellists responded by saying that vulnerability (with regards to the availability of critical minerals), is a key aspect when thinking about gaining entry to a country which holds certain rocks. Geopolitics can provide a barrier to accessing some countries, but critical minerals can also provide an enabler. An example given by one panellist was about the rocks in Afghanistan and Iran which so far, are not being looked at by many British companies but have potential with ‘risk appetite’.
We cannot change where the rocks are, but we can change which rocks we mine said another panellist. We can choose to mine in different places, but the question many experts are grappling with is: what are the market conditions to enable this? One enabling assessment criteria is the recycle input rate. Recycling is very important when looking at new minerals and rocks. If we can start doing more to recover the materials to recycle and reprocess them, that will improve where we stand on new rocks in ‘new’ locations.
Are there any plausible biological processes that can help recycle or change existing components into valuable resources? One panellist said that there are a lot of smart people designing enzymes to break down plastics and change core elements. She said that the relevance of this work with regards to critical minerals is demonstrated in some work going on in Edinburgh where teams are looking at the extraction of metals from batteries using enzymes. There has got to be a better way to extract resources from batteries than to grind them down to ‘black mass’ and then try to repurpose, said another panellist. Answering this, another panellist said that there is currently no economic way to disassemble batteries safely, and safety is important. Shredding is a safer process but if we could start looking at robotic disassembly for example, there would be no people involved. She went on to say that you could start separating all of the components of the cell (such as graphite) without impurities of other elements. This lack of impurities would be helpful in the manufacturing process later.
Innovation can play a big part in the future of a more circular critical minerals extraction process, but we should not be afraid of regulation said the panel. The right regulation can enable some positive outcomes, especially with regards to recycling and extraction critical minerals in a more circular fashion.
The government representative on the panel said that one of the main jobs of the Government’s Critical Minerals Strategy is to raise awareness to the problem, scale and levers that can be used. The simplification of ESG Standards (the set of criteria used to assess a company's performance in the areas of environmental, social, and governance factors) could be useful in addressing ethical issues around in country conflict, which are associated with the mining of critical minerals. Battery passporting could also help address the ethical supply chain question. He said that we have a Corporate Governance Code which means that companies here in the UK are accountable, whether they are working regionally or in other countries. Governance is something that the UK can bring to the international table, as a speciality.
A final question from the floor asked whether a mine can ever be a good partner for social mobility and biodiversity gain. One industry based panellist said that mining companies could ‘shoulder the responsibility’ of bringing different communities together with regards to mining critical minerals. She said that there are some examples of companies doing this. It may not support profit straight away, but it can help support social and nature ‘capital’. Science and Technology can help change the way we mine- making it cleaner, more efficient and safer.