The U.S. Department of Energy awarded Michigan Technological University $2.5 million for a project to assist the mining industry in Minnesota and Michigan's Upper Peninsula achieve net-zero emissions while retrieving critical minerals from mines.
The project has been named Energy Reduction and Improved Critical Mineral Recovery from Low-Grade Disseminated Sulfide Deposits and Mine Tailings, according to a Jan. 16 Michigan Tech news release. Michigan Tech's project is the only one in the state to receive Mining Innovations for Negative Emissions Resource Recovery funding.
“MINER research targets potential carbon-dioxide-reactive ores to unlock net-zero or net-negative emission technologies,” principal project investigator Lei Pan, an associate professor in Michigan Tech’s Department of Chemical Engineering, said in the release. “We will take carbon dioxide from the mining operation and store it safely and permanently in minerals. With our technology, we estimate 2.2 million tons of carbon dioxide per year can be sequestered in mine tailings.”
This award is part of a $39 million DOE initiative funding 16 projects nationally to create crucial mineral extraction technologies and quick carbon mineralization, the release reported.
“In this project, we target kinetics,” Pan said in the release. “Mine tailings contain a substantial amount of carbon-dioxide-reactive minerals such as olivine, which can be used as a carbon sink. It’s been done before, but at a much slower pace. Our method greatly accelerates the kinetics of carbon dioxide sequestration to achieve the result on an industrial scale in just four hours, rather than several years.”
Pan noted DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy is seeking "disruptive and scalable technologies" which can then be used at industrial sites, the release reported. Two major mining companies with nickel mining operations signed on to assist with Michigan Tech's project.
“Eventually, our new methods could be put into practice in all types of mining if the ore mineralogy is favorable for carbon mineralization,” Pan said in the release. “The outcome will not only be useful in the U.S. but in mining operations globally.”
