News: Suppliers
24 April 2024
Rio Tinto awards Missouri S&T $875,000 to research recovering gallium and germanium from copper refining waste
A professor at Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T) has been awarded $875,000 from global mining group Rio Tinto for a two-year project researching new techniques to recover critical minerals in the waste by-products that come from extracting and refining copper.
“Our project will test new chemical dissolution strategies and purification techniques to produce pure gallium and germanium compounds from these waste materials,” says Dr Lana Alagha, a Robert H. Quenon Associate Professor of Mining Engineering. “The new chemicals, or functionalized ionic liquids, we will use were designed specifically for this type of purpose.”
Picture: Dr Lana Alagha conducts research in a Missouri S&T mineral processing laboratory. (Photo by Michael Pierce/Missouri S&T.)
Alagha and one of her former Ph.D. students, Dr Mostafa Khodakarami, were recently awarded patents for these chemicals, which Alagha says will work well due to their ability to effectively separate specific components from the materials.
The US federal government considers both gallium and germanium to be critical minerals. The Energy Act of 2020 defines critical minerals as non-fuel minerals vital to the USA’s economic or national security.
“There is currently little-to-no production of these two elements in the United States, and we rely to an alarming extent on importing them,” Alagha notes. “If successfully implemented, our research could lead to a much stronger domestic supply of these important resources.”
She says that recovering gallium and germanium from the wastes created when processing copper is an unconventional approach, but this type of out-of-the-box thinking is necessary for the USA to have a more resilient supply of critical minerals.
Both gallium and germanium are more often recovered as a by-product of other metal refining process, such as with aluminium, zinc and lead, but Alagha says it should be possible to recover both of the elements with the chemical compounds that she will develop to dissolve the waste products and with the new purification techniques she will test after that.
Alagha is a member of S&T’s mining engineering faculty, but she is an expert in chemistry as well, having earned a Ph.D. in materials chemistry from the University of Texas at Dallas.
“Industry partnerships help bridge the gap between theoretical knowledge and practical application,” says Alagha. “They help facilitate the transfer of knowledge, technologies and innovations from academia to industry and vice versa. Working with Rio Tinto will help take my research in this area to the next level,” she adds.
“Rio Tinto is constantly looking for better ways to extract critical minerals from our by-product streams,” says Dr Saskia Duyvesteyn, Rio Tinto’s chief advisor of R&D. “After starting production of tellurium in 2022, we are excited to explore new techniques to produce gallium and germanium compounds in partnership with Dr Alagha and Missouri S&T. Demand for these critical minerals used in high-tech applications is only going to grow, and we are proud to support efforts to increase domestic production.”
Alagha’s co-principal investigators from Missouri S&T for the project are Dr Michael Moats, chair & professor of materials science and engineering, and Dr Marek Locmelis, associate professor of geosciences and geological and petroleum engineering at S&T and faculty fellow in research and innovation.
Alagha is also involved in other projects focusing on mineral recovery using unconventional sources. One of her projects, with over $700,000 in funding through the Critical Materials Innovation Hub led by Ames National Laboratory, also focuses on extracting gallium and germanium, while another $375,000 project funded by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory focuses on recovering tellurium, as well as gold and silver.
American Elements to increase production of gallium and germanium
