The Elements of Innovation Discovered
The Elements of Innovation Discovered
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Emerging tech addresses limitations in conventional brine evaporation method for increased domestic lithium production in North America. Direct lithium extraction (DLE) technologies promise incredibly fast processing times (hours instead of months) and higher yields, broadening the range of usable brine resources across diverse geographical locations in North America. DLE methods can vary widely, with some being more energy-intensive while others require higher amounts of...
May be the tech for unifying green energy future and the not-so-often green methods of producing lithium. Researchers at Princeton have developed a surprisingly efficient and environmentally friendly method of extracting lithium from brines and seawater using specialized string. While technologies such as direct extraction from lithium-rich geothermal waters is shaping up to be a way to produce the silvery-white critical mineral necessary for rechargeable batteries without...
Could we mine the nickel we need for lithium-ion batteries, stainless steel and other applications in much the same way as we make pure maple syrup – from the sap of trees? Research at one nickel syrup agromining grove in Malaysia is demonstrating that this concept is not as far-fetched as it might sound. While most of Earth's flora tend to avoid the sulfide-rich and potassium-poor ultramafic deposits that host much of the world's nickel – geologists often use sparse veg...
Looking to put its best foot forward when it comes to environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG), Golden Predator Mining Corp. is testing a non-cyanide and environmentally friendly way to extract the otherwise hard to recover gold from its mine project in the Yukon. For more than 130 years, cyanide has provided an inexpensive and effective means of extracting gold from ore. A chemical compound of carbon and nitrogen, cyanide dissolves gold into a solution, from...
Group 11 Technologies Inc. believes that GFG Resources Inc.'s Rattlesnake Hills project about 60 miles southwest of Casper, Wyoming is the ideal place to prove the viability of its proprietary means of recovering gold from the earth without mining. This technique, known as in-situ recovery, is a non-invasive method that involves circulating fluids underground that dissolve the sought metals and then pumping the fluids back to the surface to extract the metals – reverse of the...
Elk Creek demo plant recovers magnesium-calcium carbonate with 99% purity. As an initial step toward the ultimate goal of producing niobium, rare earths, scandium, and titanium at a future Elk Creek Mine, NioCorp Developments Ltd. announced that its demonstration-scale processing plant in Quebec, Canada has produced a high-grade calcium-magnesium carbonate from ore obtained from its critical minerals project in Nebraska. The idea behind removing the calcium and magnesium from...
Rio Tinto, Ottawa to invest C$737M in lowering GHG emissions, upping critical minerals output in Quebec. Mining giant Rio Tinto and the Canadian government have committed to investing up to C$737 million (US$537 million) into significantly reducing the greenhouse gas emissions at Rio Tinto Fer et Titane (RTFT), a metallurgical complex in Quebec that produces titanium, scandium, steel, and other metal products critical to electric vehicles, 3D printing, and aerospace. "Rio...
Following the positive results from an independent technical review received early this year, Ucore Rare Metals Inc. has decided to expand the rare earths separation capacity of its RapidSX demonstration plant to include stages that will produce the rare earths for the powerful magnets that go into electric vehicle motors, wind turbines, computer hard drives, and a long list of other modern devices. Developed by Innovation Metals Corp., a subsidiary of Ucore, RapidSX is...
After receiving C$4 million in funding toward a pilot plant and feasibility study for the sustainable recovery of iron and critical minerals from aluminum waste, Geomega Resources Inc. has entered into a development agreement with partner Rio Tinto that provides C$1 million to complete proof-of-concept work being carried out by Geomega subsidiary Innord Inc. As the largest aluminum producer in North America, Rio Tinto has agreed to begin evaluating in parallel with Innord,...
In another step toward Ucore Rare Metals Inc.'s goal of producing the first separated rare earth elements at its planned Strategic Metals Complex in Alaska in about two years, a third party has carried out an independent evaluation of the RapidSX rare earths separation technology to be used at the Alaska SMC. Developed by Gareth Hatch and his team at Innovation Metals Corp., a subsidiary of Ucore, RapidSX is a technological upgrade to the conventional solvent extraction techno...
Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers have devised a unique method to help curb the looming shortages of critical minerals and metals by making it easier to separate them from ore and recycled materials with a chemical process called sulfidation. This processing technique, as written about in a paper they published in the journal "Nature," allows the metals to remain in solid form and be separated without dissolving. This would avoid the typical but costly liquid s...
NioCorp Developments Ltd. says testing has confirmed that high-pressure grinding rolls technology is an energy-efficient and low-emission alternative for reducing the size of ore to recover the niobium, scandium, titanium, and potentially rare earths at its Elk Creek project in Nebraska. Under the mine plan laid out in a feasibility study, Elk Creek would produce 7,220 metric tons of ferroniobium, 95 metric tons of scandium trioxide, and 11,642 metric tons of titanium dioxide...
Looking for an effective, efficient, and environmentally friendly means of recovering gold from concentrated mine products provided by its global clients, United Kingdom-based Ocean Partners Holdings Ltd. has turned to the unique metal recovery solutions developed by EnviroLeach Technologies Inc. A British Columbia-based tech company focused on eco-friendly metals extraction, EnviroLeach has developed a proprietary formula that uses five ingredients that are FDA approved for h...
As its name implies, Innovation Metals Corp.'s RapidSX rare earths separation technology is at least one order of magnitude faster at extracting REEs than the solvent extraction methods that it is modernizing, according to results from extraction-rate testing. "The results of the initial extraction-rate testing for the current RapidSX columns are highly encouraging," said Innovation Metals Chairman and CEO Gareth Hatch. RapidSX is an enormous upgrade to the conventional...
Driven largely by the increased production of electric vehicles, the demand for lithium has more than doubled since 2015 and is forecast to expand by another seven times to around 2.8 million metric tons per year by 2030. Predicting this soaring demand will exhaust land-based lithium reserves by 2080, researchers at the King Abdullah University of Science & Technology in Saudi Arabia have developed a system that has the potential to economically extract high-purity lithium...
Though originally developed to recover rare earths from recycled magnets and potential ore from its Montviel REE deposit in Quebec, Geomega Resources Inc.'s rare earths and critical minerals extraction technology may draw value from and reduce the environmental footprint of bauxite residues piling up at aluminum refineries. Innord, a subsidiary of Geomega focused on developing solutions to large industrial mine waste challenges with its technology to extract critical...
A team of international researchers have developed a new mining technique that will advance humans beyond the Bronze Age when it comes to extracting copper, gold, silver, and other conductive metals out of buried bodies of ore. Since humans began using metals on an industrial scale some 5,500 years ago, we have depended on physically digging up the metal-bearing rocks from underground tunnels or quarries, crushing the ore, and then using various techniques such as heat or...
Already positioned to be the first North American producer of the battery-grade cobalt being demanded by a rapidly growing electric vehicles market, First Cobalt Corp. has been awarded $600,000 in funding from the US Department of Energy's Critical Materials Institute for research on innovative techniques for recovering the cobalt and copper from its Iron Creek project in Idaho. Being matched equally by funds from First Cobalt, this $1.2 million interdisciplinary research...
Best known for delivering technological solutions to the oil and gas sectors for more than 100 years, Schlumberger has formed Schlumberger New Energy, a new division focused on low-carbon and carbon-neutral energy technologies. One of Schlumberger New Energy's first projects in the United States is the development of a pilot plant to extract lithium from brine in Nevada. Unlike the evaporation process traditionally used to extract lithium from brines in South America, the...
Group 11 Technologies Inc. has acquired four overlooked precious metals projects in Nevada and New Mexico for initial testing of its proprietary technology for recovering gold, silver and other metals without mining. Group 11 is a partnership between enCore Energy Corp., EnviroLeach Technologies Inc., and Golden Predator Mining Corp., with each company bringing specialized experience valuable to the company's plans to make in-situ gold, silver, and copper mining a reality. A...
Group 11 Technologies Inc., a US-based company developing a means of dissolving metals while they are still underground and pumping the metal-rich solution to the surface, has officially been launched. Given its name refers to the Group 11 elements on the periodic table – copper, silver, and gold – these coinage metals are likely the primary targets of the newly formed private company. Group 11 is a partnership between enCore Energy Corp., EnviroLeach Technologies Inc., and...
In its ongoing support of a clean, sustainable, and competitive mining sector, the Canadian government is investing C$2.1 million into a project to recover and recycle cyanide after the chemical is used to recover gold from mined ore. Cyanide is a chemical compound used to recover gold by dissolving the metal into a solution that is run through processes that extract the dissolved gold. The leftover cyanide is potentially hazardous and many mining operations incorporate a...
Scientists at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Germany have developed a patent-pending process for what may be a cost-effective and environmentally friendly way to extract lithium from the geothermal waters on the German and French sides of the Upper Rhine Trench. Lithium, a key ingredient in the batteries powering electric vehicles, renewable energy storage and a plethora of rechargeable electric devises. This battery metal is primarily recovered from South...
Aptly named startup Phoenix Tailings seeks to transform a core concern within the mining sector, the waste materials from mining, into a profitable and sustainable new solution and market. Founded in 2018, Boston-based Phoenix Tailings saw potential untapped value in the waste left behind by the refining of metals and decided to get into the business of mining this mine waste, which could revolutionize the sector if done sustainably and economically. Intending to leverage this...
In spite of its toxic and corrosive reputation, cyanide has been the go-to chemical for gold recovery since 1890 due to its unmatched ability to dissolve the precious metal into a solution. Or, more precisely, previously unmatched ability to recover gold. A new, more environmentally sound formula has been developed in Canada that rivals and sometimes even exceeds cyanide gold recovery, according to tests carried out by world-leading analytical firm SGS. Developed by...
