Microbial Manufacturing of Metals from Mineral Mining Waste (5Ms)

从采矿废料中微生物制造金属（5Ms）

• 批准号: 10075719
• 金额: $ 95.57万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Collaborative R&D
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=10075719
• 关键词: Microbial; Manufacturing; Metals; Mineral; Mining

As the global population and economies continue to grow at alarming rates, this places ever-increasing demands for metals needed to manufacture everyday electronics, life-saving medical equipment and for the future of clean energy technologies (i.e., solar panels, wind turbines, batteries for electric vehicles etc). The amounts required for the five key metals (_i.e., lithium, Nickel, cobalt, copper, and rare earth elements_-REEs) will grow exponentially over the next few decades.Conventional mining practices use high consumption of energy and chemicals for metal mobilisation, and to ensure profitability, industries tend to use high-grade metal ores as raw material, which is leading to rapid depletion. These mining practices result in millions of tons of waste produced as mine-tailings, which reside as dams scarring the landscapes of the world. This volume of waste material is also increasing due to declining ore grades (_as low ore grades produce significantly more tailings waste_). However, mine-tailings still contain valuable metals, reprocessing of which can turn this perceived waste into alternate valuable resource.Transformational change is now possible in the field of metal extraction from mine-waste tailings by establishing novel Biomanufacturing processes. Intersecting the field of waste mineral processing (i.e., amorphisation of waste mineral ores) with microbial bioreactor systems holds enormous potential to address the future of clean metal manufacturing, which also focus on the circular economy from the outset.This project consortium will establish sustainable microbial biomanufacturing processes to extract key important metals from mine-waste tailings. This 5Ms project will deliver an optimised microbial bioreactor demonstrator model and will show how the biomass produced and processed (spherical) particles will be utilised for secondary market applications to complete the circular economy loop, complete with Life Cycle and technoeconomic analysis.

随着全球人口和经济的持续以惊人的速度增长，对生产日常电子设备，挽救生命的医疗设备以及清洁能源技术（即，太阳能电池板，风力涡轮机，电动汽车电池等）所需的金属所需的金属需求不断增加。五种关键金属（_i.e。，锂，镍，钴，铜和稀土元素_-rees）在接下来的几十年中将呈指数增长。规定的采矿实践使用高度对金属动员的能源和化学物质的消耗，并确保盈利能够确保盈利能够使用高级别的金属材料，以实现生产材料，以实现原始物质，以置于原始物质，这是原始的。这些采矿实践导致数百万吨的废物作为矿山，这是大坝笼罩着世界景观的大坝。由于矿石等级的下降，这一数量的废物也正在增加（低矿石等级会产生更多的尾矿废物_）。但是，矿山账户仍然包含有价值的金属，重新加工可以将这种感知的废物变成替代的宝贵资源。现在，通过建立新型的生物制造过程，从矿废物尾部提取金属材料中可以进行转换变化。与微生物生物反应器系统的废物矿物加工（即无形化废物矿石无形化）的领域具有巨大的潜力，可以解决清洁金属制造业的未来，从一开始，该项目也集中在循环经济上。该项目联盟将建立可持续的微生物生物制造工艺，以建立从造型金属上提取重要的金属材料。该5MS项目将提供优化的微生物生物反应器演示器模型，并将显示如何将生物量生成和加工（球形）颗粒用于二级市场应用，以完成循环经济环，并涵盖生命周期和技术经济学分析。