Mining Sector Turns Toward Innovative Technology to Find EV Metals

Andy Szal July 27, 2023

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A push to overhaul the world’s energy production appears likely to strain the supplies of several key minerals needed in advanced batteries and other vital equipment. Governments across the globe hope to accelerate mining efforts for those minerals, but the Wall Street Journal also recently profiled a trio of companies engaged in high-tech efforts to obtain those metals from some unorthodox sources.

Phoenix Tailings, based in suburban Boston, believes it can both clean up waste from mining operations and develop a new source of so-called “rare earth” metals used in magnets across a range of green energy systems. The company says it can process mine waste — as long as no radioactive materials are found — and recover vital metals, all while producing zero waste.

Company officials told the Journal that its operations — including a pilot plant in New York — are particularly important because China produces most of the world’s rare earths.

Across the country, in suburban Phoenix, another company is securing a similarly vital material using a much different process. Urbix says it uses machine learning to determine how to convert natural or synthetic graphite into the graphite anodes needed in electric vehicle (EV) batteries.

Additionally, outside Cleveland, a third company aims to optimize a conventional process for producing copper, which is needed in a variety of green energy systems, particularly wiring for electric cars. By adding a bio-surfactant during the copper leaching process, Locus Fermentation Solutions says it can obtain a 7% higher yield of copper than from leaching alone.