Mine copper without destroying the planet? London-based project gives scientists hope | Environment

It is the main component of bronze, the alloys that helped create some of the world’s greatest civilizations and took humanity from the Stone Age on its way to the modern era. For good, the metal is invaluable for electrical wires, plumbing and industrial machines. We owe a lot of copper.

But the metal is now facing an uncertain future as manufacturers are preparing to expand their use to make electric cars, renewable power plants and other devices that will help the planet move towards zero zero. It can cause unrestricted extraction Environmental destruction on a large scaleThe scientists warned.

The issue is to be the main focus of the new Rio Tinto Center for future materials, based in Imperial College London in partnership with many international university groups. A total of $ 150 million was allocated during the first 10 years of its operations.

The scientist of materials and deputy imperial, Professor Mary Ryan, one of the founders of the center, said, observer Last week. “The metal will be the largest bottleneck in this process. So, when creating the center, we decided that copper would be the first challenge that we dealt with – although we will turn our attention to other materials in the future.”

This point was supported by Dr. Sarah Gordon, the co -director of the center. “Our first goal is to find new and responsible ways for the source of minerals – especially copper. Can we extract them without disturbing the rocks at all? Or can we use viruses and bacteria to harvest copper? These are the first decisive questions that the center aims to answer.”

Copper has become necessary to operate devices ranging from smartphones to electric cars because they transmit electricity with the least energy loss and corrosion resistance. About 22 million tons of copper were extracted in 2023, an increase of 30 % over 2010, and the annual demand will reach about 50 million tons by 2050, analysts say.

Such output will have huge environmental consequences because copper mining uses acids that poison rivers, soil pollution and air pollution. Producers such as Peru, Chile and the Democratic Republic of the Congo have witnessed destructive natural habitats, wildlife groups erased and human health was damaged near mines. The depths of the depths of the seas have been suggestedBut the idea frightens marine biologists, who say that such companies will destroy marine life.

The goal of the new center is to find ways about these problems and help provide the materials that the world will need to reach zero. It is funded by the Rio Tinto Mining Group and hosted by Imperial College London in partnership with the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, the University of California, Perkley, the Australian National University and the University of Wituatrdand, Johannesburg.

One of the main project is to search for new ways to stop copper. “We usually extract it from the minerals that crystallized from a bright and a very brine solution,” said Professor Matthew Jackson, the president of geological fluid dynamics at the Empire College. “However, this process requires huge amounts of energy to open rocks and bring them to the surface and also generate a lot of waste while extracting copper from the source materials.”

To get this issue, Jackson, who works with international partners, was looking for underground sites where it is still a brine rich in copper in a liquid form. This salouhi is created by volcanic systems that can, decisively, provide the Earth thermal Energy for extraction.

Jackson said: “This means that we can extract copper by pumping a saline solution to the surface through the effects – which is relatively easy – as well as using local energy to operate the mine itself and may provide excess energy for nearby societies,” said Jackson. “Basically, we seek to build self -operating mines and have already distorted promising sites in New Zealand, and there is a possibility to explore traditional barren areas like Japan.”

Another approach to another imperial project follows, as a company, by the Imperial PhD students Franklin Cake and Ion Iwano.

They used GM technology to develop plant bacteria systems that have the ability to reinforce minerals from soil. “Basically, you will be able to grow these crops on the ground contaminated with waste that left mineral mining such as copper, and you will extract this mineral,” said Kik.

The importance of these technologies was emphasized by Ryan. “The world will need more copper in the next ten years than it has been extracted in the past century. Currently, we do not have enough trading to meet this demand.

“Therefore, we need to reduce our request for copper and reach how to extract it in the most sustainable way, and this is what we aim to help achieve in the center.”