Their approach isolates lithium based on its electrochemical properties, using crystal lattices of olivine iron phosphate.

In a paper published in the journal Nature Communications, the scientists explain that because of its size, charge and reactivity, lithium is drawn into the spaces in the olivine iron phosphate columns—like water being soaked into the holes in a sponge. But, if the column is designed perfectly, sodium ions, also present in briny liquids, are left out or enter the iron phosphate at a much lower level.

In the new work, the team led by Chong Liu tested how variation in olivine iron phosphate particles impacted their ability to selectively isolate lithium over sodium.

“When you produce iron phosphate, you can get particles that are drastically different sizes and shapes,” Gangbin Yan, first author of the paper, said in a media statement. “To figure out the best synthesis method, we need to know which of those particles are most efficient at selecting lithium over sodium.”

By showing how certain particles of iron phosphate can most efficiently pull lithium out of dilute liquids, these findings could hasten an era of faster, greener lithium extraction.

Lithium at a cost

The researchers pointed out that today, most lithium used in lithium batteries comes from two basic extraction processes. Lithium rock ores can be mined, broken up with heavy machinery, and then treated with acid to isolate the lithium. Lithium brine pools, on the other hand, use massive amounts of water pumped to the earth’s surface and then evaporated away—over more than a year—to yield dried lithium.

“These methods aren’t particularly environmentally friendly to begin with, and if you start trying to work with less concentrated sources of lithium, they’re going to become even less efficient,” Liu said.

“If you have a brine that is 10 times more dilute, you need 10 times more briny water to get the same amount of lithium. Our method allows the efficient extraction of the mineral from very dilute liquids, which can greatly broaden the potential sources of lithium.”

Arizaro is located in the central-western part of the Atacama Plateau and covers an area of 1,600 square kilometres, which makes it the sixth-largest salt flat in the world and the second-largest in Argentina after the Salinas Grandes.

According to local media, the edicts for the bidding process will be published by the end of June.

Citing information from Remsa’s head, Alberto Castillo, El Tribuno newspaper states that about 15 companies have shown interest in the deposit and could potentially participate in the tender. 

The process will be supervised by the Salta Mines Court, while the regional Ministry of Mining and Energy will oversee the development of the deposits. 

The Arizaro fraction that will be tendered in August is called Remsa 10. The winning company will be expected to invest in infrastructure projects such as roads, solar parks and gas pipelines, among others. Bidders will also have to establish net-smelter return percentages in favour of Remsa. 

Finally, competing companies will have to estimate and report their projects’ carbon emissions and propose offset plans that can range from reforestation programmes or landfill-fed biogas plants.

Montauk contended that Colombia breached obligations owed to the company, such as refusal or failure to compensate it for the losses incurred at the Reina de Oro gold project, following the nation’s decision to prohibit mining in Santurbán. 

The request for arbitration was submitted before the ICSID in March 2018 and asked for compensation of approximately $177 million.

According to a communiqué issued by Colombia’s National Agency for Judicial Defense of the State, the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes’ ruling states that the mining ban is a legitimate regulatory measure and that Colombia did not expropriate nor violate the Fair and Equitable Treatment standard. 

The tribunal found that the South American government acted in good faith and exercised regulatory powers to protect the moor’s (páramo in Spanish) ecosystems.

In its decision, the ICSID also noted that there was no legitimate reason for Montauk to expect that Colombia was not going to protect the páramos.

“Colombia celebrates the arbitral tribunal’s decision, which recognizes our country’s efforts and legitimate measures to protect the environment and general interest areas,” the media brief reads.

Precedent

This ICSID decision is in line with a March 2024 ruling by the same court in a similar lawsuit filed by Canada’s Red Eagle Exploration Limited against Colombia, for the prohibition of mining in the Santurbán headwaters.

Similar to the ruling in the Montauk Metals case, the ICSID found that Colombia did not violate the alleged reasonable expectation, nor did it act with a lack of transparency, unreasonably or arbitrarily, disproportionately or with discrimination. 

The tribunal concluded that Colombia had not acted in violation of the Minimum Standard of Treatment, nor was it shown that Colombia had indirectly expropriated Red Eagle’s mining concessions, as the company alleged in its claim.

One more case to go

In its media statement, the National Agency for Judicial Defense of the State points out that the Montauk and Red Eagle rulings prove that the country did not cause unnecessary uncertainty or take arbitrary measures in a similar lawsuit filed before the ICSID by another Canadian miner, Eco Oro Minerals.

In this particular case, the tribunal found in September 2021 that the Andean country acted in violation of investment protection norms enshrined in the free trade agreement between Canada and Colombia when it issued new regulations that expanded wetland protections and cut in half the area where Eco Oro was developing the Angostura project. 

However, the ICSID also recognized that the measure was not discriminatory toward Eco Oro shareholders and was an effort to legitimately protect the environment. Thus, it requested more information from both sides.

The Páramo de Santurbán is a protected area of the Andes mountains. It is covered with subalpine forests above the continuous tree line but below the permanent snow mark, where water is naturally stored during the rainy season and released during the dry season. 

The area studied is a part of the Abyssal Plains, which are deep-sea areas at depths of 3,500 to 5,500 meters. Although they make up more than half of the earth’s surface, little is known about their animal life.

“It’s estimated that only one out of 10 animal species living down there has been described by science,” Thomas Dahlgren, a marine ecologist from the University of Gothenburg who was part of the expedition, said in a media statement.

According to Dahlgren, the animals in these deep-sea areas have adapted to a life with very little nutrition. Most feed on organic debris, known as marine snow, falling from the more productive area close to the surface. As a result, this animal population is dominated by filter feeders, such as sponges, and sediment feeders, such as sea cucumbers.

“The lack of food causes individuals to live far apart, but the species richness in the area is surprisingly high. We see many exciting specialized adaptations among the animals in these areas,” the scientist said.

Using a remotely operated vehicle, the research team photographed the deep-sea life and took samples for future studies. One of the species captured on camera was a cup-shaped glass sponge, an animal believed to have the longest lifespan of any creature on the planet. They can live up to 15,000 years.

Another species discovered on the expedition was a pink sea pig, a sea cucumber from the genus Amperima. The species moves very slowly with its tube feet across the desolate plains in search of nutrient-rich sediments. The outgrowths on the front end of the underside are remodelled feet used to stuff food into the mouth.

“These sea cucumbers were some of the largest animals found on this expedition. They act as ocean floor vacuum cleaners, and specialize in finding sediment that has passed through the least number of stomachs,” Dahlgren said.

Deep-sea mining

The expedition aimed to map the area’s biodiversity of the area where deep-sea mining of rare metals used in solar panels, electric car batteries and other green technologies is planned. Several countries and companies are waiting for authorization to extract these metals bound to mineral nodules lying on the ocean floor.

The scientists want to find out more about how mining could affect the ecosystem, register existing species and understand how the ecosystem is organized.

“We need to know more about this environment to be able to protect the species living here. Today, 30% of these marine areas in consideration are protected, and we need to know whether this is enough to ensure that these species aren’t at risk of extinction,” Dahlgren said.

In a paper published in the journal Diversity and Distributions, the scientists explain that they analyzed brown trout at 71 sites in west Wales, northeast England, southwest England and southeast Ireland, where many rivers contain metal washed out from disused mines.

While trout in metal-polluted rivers appear healthy, they are genetically distinct—and a lack of diversity in these populations makes them vulnerable to future threats. By comparing the DNA of trout in rivers with and without metal pollution, the researchers found that metal-tolerant trout populations split from the wider species during periods of peak mining activity.

“These fish carry a high burden of metals, with toxic binding of dissolved metals to their gills causing suffocation, but trout that can tolerate this have emerged in polluted rivers,” Jamie Stevens, a professor at the University of Exeter and co-author of the study, said in a media statement. “If fish without this tolerance swim into these rivers, they must either leave or die from that exposure.”

“This means the metal-tolerant fish are genetically isolated, not exchanging genes with other trout populations. So, while these fish may be healthy where they are, the genetic diversity that allowed them to adapt to this rapid change in their environment is now lacking—leaving them more vulnerable to future changes.”

Common metal pollutants in former mining areas include lead and copper, and many fish and other species in these rivers have already been wiped out.

Metal-resistant trout

The emergence of metal-resistant trout with high genetic differentiation from neighbouring populations and reduced diversity was seen in populations inhabiting metal-polluted rivers in Cornwall, Wales and northeast England.

“This is likely the result of selection pressure—evolution driven in this case by survival, or non-survival, depending on the ability to withstand metal pollution,” said Daniel Osmond, lead author of the paper.

The study found the highest levels of genetic isolation in rivers that were both polluted with metal and affected by physical barriers such as dams and weirs. Metal pollution levels fluctuate, often rising during periods of high rainfall.

“Throughout different periods of history, these mined regions have been globally important in their industrial production of many metals. This, however, has left polluted landscapes such as West Cornwall, which is a giant honeycomb of old mines. When rain comes, these can fill with water and that can flow out into rivers,” Osmond said.

Freshwater migratory fish have declined significantly in many areas and, while trout are not considered a threatened species, the study shows trout may be more vulnerable than previously believed.

The researchers say that reducing mine water wash-out and removing physical barriers in rivers could help reduce genetic isolation.

The study used simulations of populations through time, modelling different historical evolutionary scenarios and the effects of these on the genetic diversity of populations, comparing these with the sampled populations today, to predict which evolutionary scenarios were most credible.

According to both the Chamber and local media, the government is working to secure a favourable vote for the proposal in Congress. This – CAEM says – would attempt against the principles of the Base Law and the Incentive Regime for Large Mining Investments (RIGI) contained within it.

So far, the Mining Investment Law stipulated that the provinces that adhere to it and that receive royalties or decide to receive them, would not be able to charge a percentage greater than 3% of the pithead value of the extracted mineral.

“Modifying this tool will have severe consequences on investor trust and the opposite effect of that sought to be promoted by the Large Investment Incentive Regime,” the media statement reads. “Our country already imposes a higher tax burden than those nations with which we compete for investments. The Argentine tax load is high and extremely regressive. Our country is facing an unparalleled opportunity to develop a strategic sector but the increase in royalties, far from being the immediate solution that some imagine to face the problems of the current economic context, could generate the opposite effect. More taxes, less competitiveness, fewer investments.”

According to CAEM, changes to the law may heavily impact active gold and silver projects, which are responsible for 70% of Argentina’s exports.

“Given the lack of new investments in this segment, we mostly have mature deposits whose operational costs continue to grow,” the release states. “Increasing their taxes will only shorten their life and, in consequence, tax collection will be lower, thus achieving the opposite result of the one we were looking for.”

In the Chamber’s view, the royalty hike would also halt or slow down expansion projects expected to go forward thanks to the RIGI, and impact lithium projects that are both operational and in the construction phase.

“The window of opportunity that the industry has right now does not accept alterations in the legal framework,” the communiqué notes. “Given that the sector is just being developed and our country has the largest number of lithium projects globally, changing the rules of the game would only discourage new investments.”

Cerro Verde, located in the southwestern Arequipa region, is responsible for almost 19% of the copper and 34% of the molybdenum produced in Peru and operates one of the world’s largest concentrating facilities with an average milling rate of more than 400,000 metric tons of ore per day. Over half of the operation is owned by Freeport-McMoRan (NYSE: FCX), while 21% is owned by SMM Cerro Verde Netherlands – a subsidiary of Sumitomo Metal Mining Company- 19.58% by Compañia de Minas Buenaventura and 5.86% by other shareholders.

By 2026 and through 2044, Cerro Verde expects to deliver a targeted average mill production rate of 420,000 metric tons of ore per day by 2026 through 2044. Mining activities are projected to end in 2052 when the current reserves are expected to be exhausted.

According to Minister Mucho, this expansion paired with the development of other projects such as Panoro Minerals’ (TSXV: PML) Cotabambas, Regulus Resources’ (TSXV: REG) Antakori, Newmont’s (NYSE: NEM) Conga and Galeno, Rio Tinto (NYSE, ASX: RIO) and First Quantum Minerals’ (TSE: FM) La Granja and Southern Copper’s (NYSE: SCCO) Michiquillay will allow the Andean country produce four million tonnes of copper per year, nearing Chile’s production.

In regard to gold projects, the government official also announced the approval of a modified environmental impact assessment for the Tantahuatay project, which is held by Compañía Minera Coimolache, a company owned 40% by project operator Buenaventura (BMV: BVNN), 44% by Southern Copper (NYSE: SCCO) and 16% by ESPRO, a private company.

Tantahuatay is a heap leach gold-silver operation, mining the oxide cap of an extensive copper-gold sulphide resource located in the northwestern Cajamarca region.

During an address before the Energy and Mines Commission of the Peruvian Congress, Mucho also advertised the upcoming approval of the Pucamarca gold project, located in the southern Tacna province and operated by Minsur, a company owned by Breca, one of the country’s top investment groups.

“The Ministry of Energy and Mines promotes sustainable mining projects in the country because mining is the main support of our economy,” Mucho said. “This activity generates large resources so that infrastructure and electrification projects, among others, can be carried out to improve the quality of life of Peruvians.”

The green chemistry lab work on nano gold formation also led to the discovery of a contact electrification reaction in water in the device—which resulted in the generation of hydrogen and hydrogen peroxide.

In a paper published in the journal Small Science, the group explains that various sizes and forms of gold nanoparticles were developed from different VFD processing parameters and gold chloride solution concentrations.

“Through this research, we have discovered a new phenomenon in the vortex fluidic device. The photo-contact electrification process at the solid-liquid interface which could be used in other chemical and biological reactions,” Badriah Mazen Alotaibi, the study’s lead author, said in a media statement. “We also have achieved the synthesis of pure, pristine gold nanoparticles in water in the VFD, without the use of chemicals commonly used—and thus minimizing waste.”

According to Alotaibi, this method is significant for the formation of nanomaterials in general because it is a green process, quick, scalable and yields nanoparticles with new properties.

He explained that gold nanoparticles‘ size and shape are critical for a range of applications—from drug delivery to catalysis, sensing and electronics—due to their physical, chemical and optical properties.

The vortex fluidic device, created a decade ago by the paper’s senior author and Flinders University professor Colin Raston, is a rapidly rotating tube open at one end with liquids delivered through jet feeds. Different rotational speeds and external applications of light in the device can be used to synthesize particles to specification.

“Researchers around the world are now finding the continuous flow, thin film fluidic device useful in exploring and optimizing more sustainable nano-scale processing techniques,” Raston said. “In this latest experiment, we hypothesize that the high shear regimes of the VFD led to the quantum mechanical effect known as contact electrification, which is another exciting development.”

In the researcher’s view, this discovery is a paradigm shift in how to make materials in a controlled way using water, with no other chemicals required.

Using a buoy fitted with PNNL’s ThermalTracker-3D (TT3D), a stereo camera system equipped with thermal cameras to track birds as they fly overhead, the scientists evaluated flight data for 1400 birds. Their analyses show that 79% flew in the first 25 metres above sea level, with most activity concentrated in the first 10 metres above sea level. This is significantly below wind turbines’ space of influence, which would stretch from 25–260 meters above the water.

Of the remaining birds tracked, 21% flew at heights that overlapped with hypothetical turbine blades, while fewer than 1% flew higher. No birds were tracked flying higher than 316 metres above sea level (the detection range of the system is limited to around 400 metres). Where the day length was about 14 hours, most birds were spotted during the day, but TT3D also tracked activity at dawn, dusk, and overnight.

“These data add to the baseline understanding of bird behaviour and will help us better understand how any future wind turbines may affect seabirds,” Shari Matzner, a computer scientist at PNNL and coauthor on the paper that presents these results, said in a media statement. “This is really the first time we’ve had real-time, quantified flight height data for these birds.” 

Researchers have studied the impacts of wind turbines in Europe and on the United States East Coast, which have more mature offshore wind industries. Previous articles have found very low rates of collisions between birds and offshore wind turbines. However, the PNNL group wanted to take a closer look at its own ‘backyard’ as the deep waters off the West Coast host a much different community of seabirds than both those places.

On the West Coast, birds like albatross, shearwater, and petrels hunt for food and depend on the same strong winds that make these waters ideal for generating power.

These birds spend much of their lives in the air. To stay aloft using the least energy, they hitch rides on strong gusts of wind to gain altitude and then coast downwards in a flight pattern known as “dynamic soaring.” Knowing this, the scientists wanted to figure out whether dynamic soaring—and other flight behaviour—might bring these birds to the height of offshore wind turbine blades.

“Certain kinds of seabirds actually need wind for effective, or even any, flight. They have long, narrow wings like glider aircraft. It’s important to quantify the degree to which seabirds and offshore wind turbines might overlap,” said Scott Terrill, co-author of the paper and senior avian expert at H.T. Harvey.

Additional data

To complement data from TT3D, PNNL researchers are also working on a system that uses radar to track bird flight at sea. Although this mechanism doesn’t offer fine detail, its detection range would allow for tracking the behaviour of a population of birds around places intended for wind turbines.

TT3D, on the other hand, doesn’t “see” long distances but can generate details about flight patterns and provide some data to help researchers identify species. 

Researchers also need to understand how birds might be affected aside from collision risk; some studies show that bird populations will completely avoid areas with wind farms, for example. More data will be needed to fully understand how these animals use the air they may one day share with wind turbines.

Cold sintering is the process of combining powder-based materials into dense forms at low temperatures through applied pressure using solvents allowing for materials to be recycled again and again. The technique was developed in 2016 by a team of researchers led by Clive Randall, director of Penn State’s Materials Research Institute.

“Defects in batteries, such as voids and cracks caused by mechanical stress on the solid-state electrolytes, may block lithium-ion transport pathways and lead the battery to short circuit,” said Yi-Chen Lan, doctoral student in chemical engineering and first author on a paper explaining the recent findings and published in the journal ChemSusChem.

“To recycle electrolytes that have undergone mechanical degradation, we use cold sintering to re-densify the microstructures and reprocess composite electrolytes by mixing ceramics with polymers and lithium salts.”

The idea for cold sintering the liquid electrolytes needed in solid-state batteries came about in 2018, when a postdoctoral scholar in the lab led by Enrique Gomez, professor of chemical engineering in the Penn State College of Engineering, accidentally broke a sample of liquid electrolyte during an experiment.

“He decided to reprocess the electrolyte sample through cold sintering, and we found out it worked just as well after being reprocessed,” Gomez said. “We didn’t realize at the time that this was a concept we could exploit, and that was the birth of this paper.”

According to the researchers, reprocessing and reusing the electrolytes leads to lower energy consumption and a lesser environmental impact over time, which in turn promotes the viability and sustainability of all-solid-state battery types.

In another paper published in MRS Communications, the researchers cold sintered a composite that goes into capacitors, which are important components of electric vehicles. In the experiments, they combined the ceramic barium titanate with Teflon or polytetrafluoroethylene.

“Our work in MRS Communications demonstrates the potential for recycling materials that will be crucial for the electrification of transportation, and therefore the reduction of greenhouse gases,” said Hongtao Sun, co-corresponding author on the paper.

During a presentation at the Sustainable Atacama Seminar, Williams said that while the executive power is in charge of implementing any changes to the decree, citizen participation is a prerequisite to doing so.

“Therefore, all of those who live this reality can participate, they can tell us which aspects are properly addressed, which aspects we are missing and which we can modify. That is the spirit of updating a regulation through participation,” the minister said.

In the politician’s view, modifying the decree will allow for the development of a clear procedure regarding what it means to reprocess or transport tailings. These two processes are not duly regulated.

Despite her acknowledgement of areas for improvement, the mining minister applauded the work of the National Geology and Mining Service, Sernageomin, in monitoring active and inactive tailings dams. She pointed out that an observatory is being developed to offer further information on the state of these deposits.

Chile hosts 795 tailings deposits across its territory, 405 of which are in the Coquimbo region and 185 in the Atacama region.

The jewelry piece was discovered inside a ruined building in the middle of the Pyrenees. The building is believed to have been part of a devastating fire that burned the settlement to the ground.

“The destruction was dated around the end of the third century BCE, the moment where the Pyrenees were involved in the Second Punic War and the passage of Hannibal’s troops,” said Oriol Olesti Vila, a researcher at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and lead author of an article in Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology that presents the findings.

“It is likely that the violent destruction of the site was connected to this war. The general fire points to anthropic destruction, intentional and very effective—not only Building G (where the earring was found), but all the buildings at the site were destroyed. In Building D we found a complete dog, burned….”

No defences

Tossal de Baltarga was a hillfort of the Cerretani community, which had a major settlement at the nearby Castellot de Bolvir. It seems to have lacked defensive walls but commanded an excellent view over the river and critical travel routes. Its sudden destruction preserved organic remains that allowed archaeologists to paint a detailed picture of the life that its occupants lived until it was set alight.

“These valleys were an important territory economically and strategically,” Olesti Vila said. “We know that Hannibal passed the Pyrenees fighting against the local tribes, likely the Cerretani. Not many archaeological remains of this expedition are preserved. Tossal de Baltarga is likely one of the best examples.”

Building G had two floors. The fire burned so fiercely that the roof, support beams and wooden upper floor fell in, but some valuables survived the fall: The archaeologists found an iron pickaxe and the gold earring, concealed in a little pot.

This upper floor seems to have been divided into spaces for cooking and textile production. Numerous spindle whorls and loom weights were found, which could have been used to spin and weave wool from the sheep and goats that lived on the lower floor. Archaeologists also found edible grains like oats, barley, and some cooking vessels, with residues showing that the people who used Building G had been drinking milk and eating pork stews.

A memory of conflict

While no human remains were found in Building G, six animals did not escape. Four sheep, one goat and one horse were penned up in their wooden enclosures with their feed. They could even have been trapped by a closed door, which would explain the burned wood found at the entrance. This penning might have been a departure from usual practices, caused by the fear of conflict: Isotope analysis indicates some sheep had previously grazed in lowland pastures, possibly by arrangement with other communities.

“These mountain communities were not closed in the highlands, but connected with neighbouring areas, exchanging products, and likely, cultural backgrounds,” said Olesti Vila. “The complex economy indicates an Iron Age society adapted to their environment and taking advantage of their resources in the highlands. But it also shows their contact with other communities.”

The researcher noted that his team’s reconstruction points to a sudden destruction, with no time to open the door of the stall and save the animals.

“This could be just an unexpected local fire. But the presence of a hidden gold earring indicates the anticipation by the local people of some kind of threat, likely the arrival of an enemy,” Olesti Vila said. “Also, the keeping of such a high number of animals in a little stall suggests the anticipation of danger.”

Archaeologists don’t know what became of the people who were living at Tossal de Baltarga, but it was eventually reoccupied, and garrisoned by the Romans. Some part of the community likely survived the conflagration. Perhaps remembering the burning of Building G and its neighbours, these later occupants of Tossal de Baltarga constructed defences—including an impressive watchtower.

“This compact arachnid had a body length of about 1.5 centimetres and is characterized by its remarkably robust and spiny legs — such that it is quite unlike any other arachnid known, living or extinct,” said Paul Selden, a researcher at the University of Kansas and the Natural History Museum of London and co-author of the paper presenting the ancient critter.

According to Selden, Carboniferous Coal Measures are an important source of information for fossil arachnids, representing the first time in earth’s history when most living groups of arachnids occurred together. Yet, the fauna was still quite different from today’s.

“Spiders were a rather rare group, only known at that time from primitive lineages, and they shared these ecosystems with various arachnids which have long since died out,” said Jason Dunlop, study co-author and a researcher at the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin. “Douglassarachne acanthopoda is a particularly impressive example of one of these extinct forms. The fossil’s very spiny legs are reminiscent of some modern harvestmen, but its body plan is quite different from a harvestman or any other known arachnid group.”

This led the two scientists to conclude it doesn’t belong in any known arachnid order.

“Unfortunately, details such as the mouth parts cannot be seen, which makes it difficult to say exactly which group of arachnids are its closest relatives,” Selden said.

“It could belong to a wider group, which includes spiders, whip spiders and whip scorpions. Whatever their evolutionary affinities, these spiny arachnids appear to come from a time when arachnids were experimenting with a range of different body plans. Some of these later became extinct, perhaps during the so-called ‘Carboniferous Rainforest Collapse,’ a time shortly after the age of Mazon Creek when the coal forests began to fragment and die off. Or perhaps these strange arachnids clung on until the end of the Permian mass extinction?”

According to the team, the Mazon Creek fossil locality is one of the most important windows into life in the late Carboniferous, producing many fascinating plants and animals. The present fossil was discovered in a clay-ironstone concretion in the 1980s by Bob Masek and later acquired by the David and Sandra Douglass Collection and displayed in their Prehistoric Life Museum.

“The genus name Douglassarachne acknowledges the Douglass family, who kindly donated the specimen to the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago for scientific study once it became apparent that it represented an undescribed species,” Dunlop said. “Then, acanthopoda refers to the unique and characteristic spiny legs of the animal.”

The work, published in the journal Frontiers in Earth Science, explains that these mines could see a secondary resource stream in the form of metals used in renewable energy and numerous other high-tech applications.

“The model is if you’re already moving rock, could you move a little more rock for resources towards energy transition?,” study co-author Lauren Birgenheier said in a media statement. “In those areas, we’re finding that the rare earth elements are concentrated in fine-grain shale units, the muddy shales that are above and below the coal seams.”

This research was conducted in partnership with the Utah Geological Survey and Colorado Geological Survey as part of the Carbon Ore, Rare Earth and Critical Minerals project, or CORE-CM.

While these metals are crucial for US manufacturing, especially in high-end technologies, they are largely sourced from overseas.

“When we talk about them as ‘critical minerals,’ a lot of the criticality is related to the supply chain and the processing,” Michael Free, who also authored the paper, said. “This project is designed around looking at some alternative unconventional domestic sources for these materials.”

Hard, abundant data

The association between coal and REE deposits has been well documented elsewhere, but little data had been previously gathered or analyzed in Utah and Colorado’s coal fields.

“The goal of this phase-one project was to collect additional data to try and understand whether this was something worth pursuing in the West,” said study co-author Michael Vanden Berg, energy and minerals program manager at the Utah Geological Survey. “Is there rare earth element enrichment in these rocks that could provide some kind of byproduct or value added to the coal mining industry?”

The researchers analyzed 3,500 samples from 10 mines, four mine waste piles, seven stratigraphically complete cores, and even some coal ash piles near power plants.

“The coal itself is not enriched in rare earth elements,” Vanden Berg said. “There’s not going to be a byproduct from mining the coal, but for a company mining the coal seam, could they take a couple of feet off the floor at the same time? Could they take a couple of feet off the ceiling? Could there be potential there? That’s the direction that the data led us.”

The team deployed two different methods to record levels of rare earths, expressed in parts per million, or ppm, in the samples. One was a hand-held device for quick readings in the field, the other used Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry, or ICP-MS, in an on-campus lab.

“We’re mostly using this portable X-ray fluorescence device, which is an analysis gun that we hold to the rock for two minutes, and it only gives us five or six of the 17 rare earth elements,” Birgenheier said. If samples showed concentrations higher than 200 ppm, they ran a more complete analysis using the more costly mass spectrometry equipment.

The Department of Energy has set 300 ppm as the minimum concentration for rare earth mining to be potentially economically viable. However, for the study, the researchers deemed concentrations greater than 200 ppm to be considered “REE enriched.”

The analysis found the highest prevalence of such concentrations in coal-adjacent formations of siltstone and shale, while sandstone and the coal itself were mostly devoid of rare earths.

So far, the team has analyzed 11,000 samples. Next steps include determining how much rare earth ore is present, likely to be done with colleagues at the University of Wyoming and New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology.

The paper, published by the International Energy Forum, examined 120 years of global data from copper mining companies and calculated how much copper the US electricity infrastructure and car fleet would need to upgrade to renewable energy. It found that renewable energy’s copper needs would outstrip what copper mines can produce at the current rate.

This is particularly the case taking into account that the Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law in 2022, calls for 100% of cars manufactured to be electric vehicles by 2035. But an electric vehicle requires three to five times as much copper as an internal combustion engine vehicle — not to mention the copper required for upgrades to the electric grid.

“A normal Honda Accord needs about 40 pounds of copper. The same battery electric Honda Accord needs almost 200 pounds of copper. Onshore wind turbines require about 10 tons of copper, and in offshore wind turbines, that amount can more than double,” said Adam Simon, co-author of the study. “We show in the paper that the amount of copper needed is essentially impossible for mining companies to produce.”

The shortfall is in part because of the permitting process for mining companies. The average time between discovering a new copper mineral deposit and getting a permit to build a mine is about 20 years.

Copper is mined by more than 100 companies operating mines on six continents. The researchers drew data for global copper production back to 1900, which told them the global amount of copper mining companies had produced over 120 years. They then modelled how much copper mining companies are likely to produce for the rest of the century.

What’s achievable

The researchers found that between 2018 and 2050, the world will need to mine 115% more copper than has been mined in all human history until 2018 just to meet “business as usual.” This would meet our current copper needs and support the developing world without considering the green energy transition.

To meet the copper needs of electrifying the global vehicle fleet, as many as six new large copper mines must be brought online annually over the next several decades. About 40% of the production from new mines will be required for electric vehicle-related grid upgrades.

“I’m fully on board with the energy transition. However, it needs to be done in a way that’s achievable,” Simon said.

Instead of fully electrifying the US fleet of vehicles, the researcher suggests focusing on manufacturing hybrid vehicles.

“We are hoping the study gets picked up by policymakers who should consider copper as the limiting factor for the energy transition, and to think about how copper is allocated,” Simon said. “We know, for example, that a Toyota Prius actually has a slightly better impact on climate than a Tesla. Instead of producing 20 million electric vehicles in the United States and globally, 100 million battery electric vehicles each year, would it be more feasible to focus on building 20 million hybrid vehicles?”

The researcher also points out that copper will be needed for developing countries to build infrastructure, such as building an electric grid for the approximately 1 billion people who don’t yet have access to electricity; to provide clean water drinking facilities for the approximately 2 billion people who don’t have access to clean water; and wastewater treatment for the 4 billion people who don’t have access to sanitation facilities.

“Renewable energy technologies, clean water, wastewater, electricity — it cannot exist without copper. So we then end up with tension between how much copper we need to build infrastructure in less developed countries versus how much copper we need for the energy transition,” Simon said.

“Our study highlights that significant progress can be made to reduce emissions in the United States. However, the current — almost singular — emphasis on downstream manufacture of renewable energy technologies cannot be met by upstream mine production of copper and other metals without a complete mindset change about mining among environmental groups and policymakers.”

In detail, the scientists discovered that the surface of swarf, a byproduct of the metal machining industry, is textured with tiny steps and grooves on a nanoscale level. These textures can anchor atoms of platinum or cobalt, leading to an efficient electrocatalyst that can split water into hydrogen and oxygen.

“Industries in the UK alone generate millions of tons of metal waste annually. By using a scanning electron microscope, we were able to inspect the seemingly smooth surfaces of the stainless steel, titanium, or nickel alloy swarf,” said lead researcher Jesum Alves Fernandes. “To our astonishment, we discovered that the surfaces had grooves and ridges that were only tens of nanometers wide. We realized that this nanotextured surface could present a unique opportunity for the fabrication of electrocatalysts.”

The researchers used magnetron sputtering to create a platinum atom “rain” on the swarf’s surface. These platinum atoms then come together into nanoparticles that fit snugly into the nanoscale grooves.

“It is remarkable that we are able to produce hydrogen from water using only a tenth of the amount of platinum loading compared to state-of-the-art commercial catalysts,” said Madasamy Thangamuthu, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Nottingham who was responsible for the analysis of the structure and electrocatalytic activity of the new materials. “By spreading just 28 micrograms of the precious metal over 1 cm² of the swarf, we were able to create a laboratory-scale electrolyzer that operates with 100% efficiency and produces 0.5 litres of hydrogen gas per minute just from a single piece of swarf.”

The group believes the electrocatalysts made from swarf have the potential to greatly impact the British economy. Thus, the scientists are partnering with AqSorption Ltd, a Nottingham-based company specializing in electrolyzer design and fabrication to scale up their technology.

“Our unique technology developed at Nottingham, which involves atom-by-atom growth of platinum particles on nanotextured surfaces, has solved two major challenges. Firstly, it enables the production of green hydrogen using the least amount of precious metal possible and, secondly, it upcycles metal waste from the aerospace industry, all in a single process,” Andrei Khlobystov, co-author of the study, said.

Hydrogen is a clean fuel that can be used to generate heat or power vehicles, and the only byproduct of its combustion is water vapour. However, most hydrogen production methods rely on fossil fuel feedstock. Electrolysis of water is one of the most promising green pathways for hydrogen production, as it only requires water and electricity.

The industry, however, is facing a challenge with water electrolysis, as this process requires rare and expensive elements like platinum to catalyze the water splitting. With the limited global supply and increasing prices of precious metals, there is an urgent need for alternative electrocatalyst materials to produce hydrogen from water.

Between 2013 and 2014, Kaloti accused Peru of violating provisions in the Trade Promotion Agreement (Peru-United States TPA), due to the temporary seizure of five gold shipments meant to be exported from Peru to the US but whose origins were unclear. Peruvian authorities halted the trade deal alleging the gold may have resulted from illegal mining operations. 

The Miami-based precious metals trader, thus, also accused Peru of defamation and “ruining its reputation” internationally.

However, ICSID rejected all of the claims for lack of jurisdiction and ordered the plaintiff to reimburse the Peruvian State for all the legal costs associated with the case, including 100% of the fees charged by lawyers and experts.

In its defence, Peru argued that Kaloti’s claims were outside the jurisdiction of the Arbitration Tribunal for several reasons, including the fact that the claimant had failed to prove that it owned or controlled an investment covered under the protection of the Peru-United States TPA. 

The Peruvian State also noted that the purchase of the gold shipments in question by Kaloti constituted a purely commercial transaction that did not comply with the characteristics that an investment must meet following what’s stipulated in the TPA and the ICSID Convention.

The Andean country indicated that none of the measures taken by authorities were contrary to the country’s obligations under the Peru-United States TPA and that they were reasonable and justifiable as they responded to the existing legal framework to address illegal mining and money laundering.

“The court accepted the jurisdictional arguments presented by the Peruvian State, concluding that the claimant had not demonstrated that it owned or controlled an investment in Peru, in accordance with the terms provided in the Peru-United States TPA,” Peru’s State Coordination and Response System in International Investment Disputes said in a media statement. “According to the argument developed by the Arbitration Court, the claimant did not demonstrate that it owned or controlled the gold from the five seized shipments, and has not been able to substantiate the claim that it had investments through a company established in Peru.”

The ICSID also rejected the $154-million compensation claimed by Kaloti and ordered the company to pay over $3.5 million to cover the legal fees and expenses incurred by Peru, as well as almost $368,000 for procedural costs.

“These waters are normally crystal clear, so deep-sea mining could indeed have a major impact on deep-sea life,” marine geologist Sabine Haalboom, who studied this phenomenon for her PhD dissertation at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, said in a media statement.

Haalboom pointed out that deep-sea mining may take place at depths whose underwater life is yet to be described.

Among other things, the silt at the bottom of the deep sea, which will be stirred up when extracting manganese nodules, is a major concern. Since life in the deep sea is largely unidentified, clouding the water will create completely unknown effects.

For her research, Haalboom conducted experiments with different instruments to measure the amount and also the size of suspended particles in the water. At the bottom of the Clarion Clipperton Zone, a vast area in the depths of the Pacific Ocean, she performed measurements with those instruments before and after a grid with 500 kilograms of steel chains had been dragged across the bottom.

“The first thing that strikes you when you take measurements in that area is how unimaginably clear the water naturally is,” the scientist noted. “After we dragged the chains back and forth over a 500-metre stretch, the vast majority of the stirred-up material settled within just a few hundred metres. Yet, we also saw that a small portion of the stirred-up bottom material was still visible up to hundreds of metres from the test site and metres above the bottom. The water was a lot murkier than normal at long distances from the test site.”

In a follow-up study, in which Haalboom was not involved, the “dust clouds” were visible even up to five kilometres away from the test site.

Companies competing for concessions to extract metals from the deep-sea floor are seizing on the results of these initial trials as an indication of the low impact of deep-sea mining on bottom life. Yet, that is not justifiable, said Henko de Stigter, co-promoter of Haalboom’s research and an oceanographer at the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research.

“Sure, based on this PhD research and also based on follow-up research, we know that the vast majority of the dust settles quickly. But when you take into consideration how clear these waters normally are, and that deep-sea life depends on the very scarce food in the water, that last little bit could have a big impact,” he said.

Both Haalboom and De Stigter urge more research before firm statements can be made about the impact of deep-sea mining.

“It is really too soon to say at this point how harmful or how harmless that last bit of dust is that can be spread over such great distances”, de Stigter emphasized.

In a paper published in the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition, the scientists introduce a three-stage process where copper is first dissolved from electronic waste, followed by silver and, finally, gold. This way, metals can be selectively separated from plastic, ceramics and other materials, yielding pure noble metals. In addition, the solvents used can be easily recycled.

The team tested organic solvents on crushed circuit boards, successfully extracting the gold and copper contained in them. Silver was separated from crushed old solar panels. This result is interesting because solar panels are a high-volume product whose recycling has thus far been extremely challenging.

“In this study, we used what is known as deep eutectic solvents, liquids, that are made from substances that are solid at room temperature and under normal pressure, such as choline chloride—also used in poultry feed—and urea, as well as other safe organic compounds,” Anže Zupanc, co-author of the study, said in a media statement.

Deep eutectic solvents are a special type of solvent composed of two or more simple compounds that form a mixture with a low melting point. These solvents are known as deep eutectic, as their melting point is considerably lower than the melting point of each component on its own.

Deep eutectic solvents are environmentally friendly, renewable and in many cases biodegradable. They have many applications including in chemical reactions, catalysis and extraction techniques.

In this study, lactic acid and hydrogen peroxide were used as solvents as well.

“An important result was that the solvents could be reused, putting the principles of green chemistry into practice,” lead researcher Timo Repo said.

This estimate excludes India and China, as the two largest coal users currently do not have phase-out plans.

According to a recent paper in Nature Communications, if China and India decide to phase out coal as fast as needed to reach the Paris climate targets and pay similar compensation, it would cost upwards of $2 trillion.

The researchers, hailing from Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden and the Central European University in Austria, have studied all countries with coal phase-out plans around the world and found that those with the most coal power production and with plans for rapid phase-out have compensation policies in place.

In total, these 23 countries with 16% of the world’s coal power plants have pledged about $209 billion in compensation. This may sound like a lot of money, however, the researchers point out that it equates to roughly 6 gigatons of avoided CO2 emissions and the cost of compensation for coal phase-out per tonne of avoided CO2 emissions ($29-46 per tonne) is well below recent carbon prices in Europe (~$64-80  per tonne).

“So far these ‘just transition’ policies are consistent with, or lower than, the carbon prices within the EU, which means they make sense in terms of climate change. But more funding is likely needed if we want to reach the Paris climate targets,” Jessica Jewell, one of the study’s co-authors, said in a media statement.

This is because achieving the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement will not be possible without the participation of the world’s major coal consumers, China and India, which have more than half of the world’s coal plants, but no phase-out plans currently in place.

The study found that, for China and India to adopt compensation policies similar to those already in place, the estimated compensation amount for both countries would be $2.4 trillion for the 2°C target and $3.2 trillion for the 1.5°C target.

“The estimated compensation for China and India is not only larger in absolute terms but would also be more expensive compared to their economic capacities”, Lola Nacke, co-author of the paper, said.

A big question thus is where such large sums of money would come from. Today about half of all compensation is funded from international sources such as Just Energy Transition Partnerships, which are multi-lateral structures for accelerating the phase-out of fossil fuels. These intergovernmental partnerships coordinate financial resources and technical assistance from countries in the Global North to a recipient country to help it in this regard. They are currently in place in Vietnam, Indonesia and South Africa.

International finance might also be needed to support future coal phase-out compensation in major coal-consuming countries. However, the researchers note that the estimated amounts of compensation for China and India alone are comparable to the entire international climate finance pledged in Paris and larger than current development aid to these countries.

“Discussions about the cost of climate change mitigation often focus on investments in renewable energy technologies – but we also see it’s essential to address social implications of fossil fuel decline to enable rapid transitions”, Nacke said.

In a paper published in the journal Small, the scientists explain that fentanyl is a synthetic opioid and one of the main drivers of overdose deaths in the United States and Canada. It’s often mixed with other drugs and present in such small amounts that it can be hard to detect.

The new sensor, however, is six orders of magnitude more sensitive than any electrochemical sensor for the drug reported in the past five years. Besides carbon and gold, the key to its effectiveness is the incorporation of fentanyl antibodies.

“We’re using nature’s invention, so to speak,” lead researcher Alexander Star said in a media statement. “That’s how we can reach these ultralow levels of detection.”

Inspired by covid and pot

The sensor is a modified version of a covid-19 sensor developed by Star’s research group in 2020. The covid sensor is itself an adaptation of a THC breath test—similar to a Breathalyzer, but for marijuana—which he developed in 2019.

The core of each of these sensors is made of a chip with carbon nanotubes attached. Each tube is like a tiny wire that is 100,000 times smaller than a human hair and effective at conducting electricity. Attached to the nanotubes are gold nanoparticles, each about 43 nanometers tall.

In practice, molecules of fentanyl bind to the nanoparticles, triggering a current that flows through the nanotubes. Different substances create different currents; using machine learning, the sensor was able to identify a fentanyl molecule. It also had a 91% success rate when it came to differentiating fentanyl from other opioids, which is helpful when trying to determine whether another drug has been tainted with fentanyl.

To reach its unprecedented level of sensitivity, Star and his team took a cue from the covid sensor and incorporated fentanyl antibodies, attaching them to the nanoparticles. Fentanyl molecules would tightly bind to any antibodies they encountered, changing the current flowing from the antibodies into the nanotubes, signalling the presence of the drug.

The result was a sensor capable of detecting fentanyl on the femtomolar scale. That’s 10-15 moles per liter. The next closest sensor can detect on the nanomolar scale, which is 10-9 moles per litre.

“Nature developed these selective receptors,” Star said. “We adapted them on our platform, the carbon nanotubes.”

In addition to its sensitivity, another benefit of the new device is its portability. To detect such small quantities of fentanyl today requires a mass spectrometer—not a particularly mobile technology. Star’s sensor is small enough to be hand-held and inexpensive enough to be practical.

In the future, the researcher anticipates using this technique to develop a sensor array that can detect many kinds of drugs.

Their goal is to provide a solution for personal and multi-user touch screens such as tablets and mobile devices, something that had been hard to achieve using copper because coatings produced from the red metal are predominantly opaque.

In a recent study published in the journal Communications Materials, the scientists explain that the fabrication process of this surface involved depositing an ultra-thin copper film with a nominal thickness of 3.5nm onto a glass substrate. Then, they used a rapid thermal annealing process to form dewetted Cu nanoparticles with optimal size and distribution.

This specific design and method provided an antimicrobial effect, transparency, colour neutrality, and electrical insulation. Finally, additional layers of SiO2 and fluorosilanes were deposited on top of the nanoparticles, providing environmental protection and improved durability properties with use-test cases. 

Subsequently, the study authors examined the fabricated coating morphology, optical response, antimicrobial efficacy, and mechanical durability. The TANCS showed the ability to eliminate over 99.9% of Staphylococcus Aureus present in the tested surfaces within two hours, under stringent dry test conditions.

Moreover, the substrate demonstrated optical transparency allowing for 70-80% light transmission in the visible range (380-750nm) and colour neutrality. Finally, the surfaces showed to have a prolonged effectiveness with use-test cases, maintaining their antimicrobial activity even after a rigorous wipe-testing procedure.

“This is a great example of creating a multi-attribute product while co-optimizing the attributes high efficacy antimicrobial properties that work under dry test conditions for touch-enabled, display use test cases,” Wageesha Senaratne, a researcher at Corning and leading co-author of the study, said in a media statement. “Our goal was to show the connections between biological performance and physical attributes and provide further guidance for future research.”

For Senaratne and her colleagues, this new approach of considering the dewetting process opens a variety of new possibilities to exploit some specific properties of metals while being able to thoughtfully change the others.

“Here, for example, we were able to preserve the powerful antimicrobial effect of the copper while obtaining transparency and insulation despite the use of a metal,” said Alessia Mezzadrelli, co-author of the study.

While further development is necessary for full-fledged commercial deployment, the researchers believe this is a step in the right direction to enable antimicrobial touch screens for public or personal displays.

Called the “scoping process,” the federal government published a notice of intent to share South32’s project plans and allow community members, through June 10, 2024, to provide input and publicly comment on the scope of analysis and issues the USFS should consider as a part of Hermosa’s Environmental Impact Statement. 

While all of Hermosa’s mining will be done from private lands and require several state permits to begin initial development, a federal permit is required to develop the project. 

Located in the Patagonia Mountains, about 80 kilometres southeast of Tucson, Arizona, Hermosa comprises the zinc-lead-silver Taylor sulphide deposit and the zinc-manganese-silver Clark oxide deposit. In addition to these deposits, Hermosa has a highly prospective broader land package that includes the copper-lead-zinc-silver Peake exploration target and the Flux prospect.

Hermosa is the only advanced US mining project capable of producing two federally designated critical minerals, zinc and manganese. Last year, it became the first project to be added to the United States’ FAST-41 permitting process.

The scoping procedure that just started is specifically focused on the scope of the environmental analysis, alternatives that meet the purpose and need of the project, and receiving information that will help the USFS understand the environmental impacts of the project’s proposed expansion of ancillary infrastructure onto Forest Service lands. 

Overall, federal authorization is expected to take two more years and include multiple rounds of public feedback and discussion. 

“South32’s Hermosa project aims to set a new standard for sustainable mining, with advanced technology. Because we are building it from the ground up, it is being designed to minimize environmental impact, including operating on a limited surface footprint, using approximately 75% less water than other mines in the region and achieving the goal of no net loss for biodiversity,” Brent Musslewhite, Hermosa’s director of permitting and approvals, said in a media statement. “We encourage community members to participate in the Forest Service’s public comment process. Working together, we can strengthen the domestic supply of critical minerals needed for clean energy technologies and national defence, reduce America’s reliance on foreign countries and transform the local economy.”

After a recent board approval of $2.16 billion in funding to develop the zinc-lead-silver deposit, Hermosa has become the largest private investment in Southern Arizona’s history.

The gold mine, located in the southern Argentinian province of Santa Cruz, was shut down on April 10, 2024, following the death of two workers who were part of the company’s technical services team.

The investigation is ongoing but authorities nor Newmont have provided further details.

In its media statement, CAPROMISA expressed its condolences for the passing of Rosana Ledesma and Daniel Ochoa, while also noting that the organization supports the continued operation of Cerro Negro.

“We acknowledge the mine’s commitment to industrial safety and the wellbeing of its employees, which are the same guidelines followed by associated companies and all the staff that work there,” the release reads. “Thus, we urge the mining company and other relevant parties to speed up administrative processes so that the Cerro Negro mine can reopen as soon as possible.”

According to the Chamber, an indefinite stoppage threatens the local economy by impacting the sources of income of mine workers and small and medium-sized companies that service the gold operation.

CAPROMISA said it is willing to collaborate with relevant parties to reach a prompt solution to the situation while observing the necessary measures to keep workers safe.

Cerro Negro is one of Newmont’s key mines in South America, generating over $500 million in exports per year. It is undergoing a $540-million expansion project that would extend its life until 2034, with total production expected to reach over 350,000 ounces from 2024 onwards.

Measuring some 45 centimetres long and weighing between 24 and 32 kilos, the ingots are triangular, resembling a Toblerone bar.

There are only three of them and one is broken in half but recent analyses of these artifacts yield enough information to state that ancient Córdoba was the western ancient world’s main center for lead smelting. Back then, the metal was used to produce a multitude of everyday tools, such as spoons, tiles, and pipes.

Ancient Córdoba was the capital of the Roman Empire’s region of Baetica, whose territory occupied what is today the north of the province, encompassing the Guadiato Valley, Los Pedroches, and some districts of Jaen, Ciudad Real and Badajoz.

Mining hub

The ingots, dating from the first century A.D., were unearthed in the twentieth century during work on the Maghreb-Europe gas pipeline and were kept in the Belmez Museum and private homes. Two of them bear an identifying mark, making it possible to reveal part of their history and to confirm the great importance of mining in the central Sierra Morena area during the Roman period.

This mark is actually two letters, “S S,” referring to the Societas Sisaponensis, a mining company likely headquartered in Córdoba but originally founded in La Bienvenida, a town in Almodóvar del Campo, Ciudad Real, which was famous for the production of cinnabar.

In addition to the ingots’ triangular shape, which optimizes their storage capacity, the fact that they bore these letters means that they were supposed to be exported. The mark identifies the producer of the pieces, which were to be loaded onto ships along with other products.

Thus, the industrial activity in northern Córdoba was not limited to the production of lead and silver, something that has been known for a while, but also involved exports, placing the area among the main producers of metals intended for Mediterranean trade.

Analysis of the ingots’ chemical composition and stable isotopes allowed the research team to verify that they were desilvered and that the ore with which they were made was from the district of Fuente Obejuna-Azuaga, a major mining area that included the Doña Rama site where the ingots were found. In other words, the three pieces had a common origin linked to the same site where they were discovered.

The fact that the ingots were found in the same area where they were produced is exceptional, and the reason for this is unknown. Most ingots of this type have been found at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea, at shipwreck sites, and it is precisely at the bottom of the sea where the most information has been obtained.

“This information demonstrates that, in antiquity, these northern regions of Córdoba boasted major metallurgical networks of great commercial and economic importance in the Mediterranean,” said University of Córdoba researcher Antonio Monterroso Checa. “This reveals the level of industrialization, skill and knowledge necessary to reach that level of manufacturing.”

Although much remains to be studied, the Doña Rama site would seem to be a mining town complete with a foundry, a processing area and, possibly, a fortress. “But all this remains to be studied,” Monterroso Checa said.

TSJ is working on the development of the San Juan wolfram deposit, located in Galicia, northwestern Spain. The site has appreciable tungsten mineralization which has never been mined. 

The company has planned an initial small-scale open-pit production based on proven reserves of 60,000 tonnes at 1.3% WO3 (78,000 MTU). With consideration of a potential extension of the open pit as well as the other reserves in the remaining numerous outcroppings of skarn, TSJ forecasts a mining objective for the project in the order of at least 960,000 MTU, that is, more than 12 times the size of the proven reserves.

According to the miner, San Juan has all the necessary licences and contracts in place to commence production, including a letter of intent for an off-take agreement with Wolfram Bergbau und Hütten AG, an Austrian world-leading tungsten producer within the Swedish Sandvik Group.

In a press release, Eurobattery Minerals said its full investment amount would primarily be used for designing and building a processing plant and as working capital for the production start. First tungsten delivery is expected in 2025.

“The payment would be made in cash in two tranches of €1.5 million and €1 million respectively, where the company would access its full ownership stake directly after the payment of the first tranche,” the brief states. “The company intends to complete both tranches of the investment in 2024.”

Tungsten is a critical raw material used widely in industrial applications, as well as in the electronics and power industry, and the aeronautics and defence sectors.

“This acquisition is a game changer for Eurobattery Minerals and it will transform the company’s DNA,” Roberto García Martínez, the firm’s CEO, said. “Tungsten is listed as a critical raw material by the EU and tungsten-enhanced steel is vital, for example, for the defence industry.”

Eurobattery Minerals is also the majority owner of the ground and mining rights to the Hautalampi nickel-cobalt-copper project in Finland and the Corcel nickel-copper-cobalt project in Galicia. 

In a paper published in the journal Wind Energy, the researchers explain that the post-moulding operations to manufacture wind turbine blades require workers to perch on scaffolding and wear protective suits including respiratory gear. Automation, thus, will boost employee safety and well-being and help manufacturers retain skilled labour.

“The motive of this research was to develop automation methods that could be used to make domestically manufactured blades cost competitive globally,” Hunter Huth, lead author of the article, said in a media statement.

“Currently offshore blades are not produced in the US due to high labor rates. The finishing process is very labour-intensive and has a high job turnover rate due to the harsh nature of the work. By automating the finishing process, domestic offshore blade manufacturing can become more economically viable.”

The research was conducted at the Composites Manufacturing Education and Technology (CoMET) facility at NREL’s Flatirons Campus. The robot worked on a 5-meter-long blade segment. Wind turbine blades are considerably longer, but because they bend and deflect under their own weight, a robot would have to be programmed to work on the bigger blades section by section.

The researchers used a series of scans to create a 3D representation of the position of the blade and to identify precisely the front and rear sections of the airfoil—a special shape of the blade that helps the air flow smoothly over the blade. From there, the team programmed the robot to perform a series of tasks, after which it was judged on accuracy and speed. They then found areas for improvement, particularly when it came to grinding. The robot ground down too much in some parts of the blade and not enough in others.

“As we’ve gone through this research, we’ve been moving the goalposts for what this system needs to do to be effective,” Huth said.

According to the scientist, once perfected, an automated system would provide consistency in blade manufacturing which is not possible when humans are doing all the work. He also said a robot would be able to use “tougher, more aggressive abrasives” than a human could tolerate.

In a paper published in the journal Resources, Conservation and Recycling, the scientists explain that existing methods to recover phosphorus from ash have significant problems, including chemical contamination requiring further purification and complicated expensive chemical processing.

Using previous investigations on ways to retrieve phosphorus and other elements such as calcium, magnesium and iron by heat treatment of sewage sludge, the Hokkaido scientists understood that the process of volatilization, in which different elements are selectively converted into gaseous forms, allowing them to be separated from the rest of the treated ash, could be a promising approach for recovering phosphorus in the form of heat-stable compounds.

Therefore, they decided to explore the volatilization behaviour of the different elements in sewage sludge ash under different chemical conditions, especially with and without carbon being added during a sludge treatment process involving chlorine.

This allowed them to develop an effective technique for separating useful phosphorus-containing compounds using a combination of chlorination steps with and without the presence of carbon.

“The method we developed can be implemented with lower energy requirements, lower CO2 emissions, and lower cost than conventional phosphorus recovery technologies from phosphate ores,” Yuuki Mochizuki, lead author of the paper, said in a media statement. “In our method, phosphorus is recovered in the valuable phosphorus chloride forms, which can also be converted to phosphoric acid by dissolution in water.”

Taking into account that in Japan, the total amount of phosphorus contained in secondary phosphorus resources such as steel slag, livestock manure, and sewage sludge is equivalent to about half of the total amount of phosphorus brought into the country, Mochizuki and his colleagues plan to study whether their technique could be used to reduce the need for phosphorus imports.

The EGC is a neo-paramilitary group and likely the country’s largest drug cartel, which was created after the demobilization of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia. Their presence in Santander is meant to control illegal gold mining operations.

According to Díaz – a retired army general turned politician – the criminals are not only taking over the area but also polluting water sources. 

“We have asked the National Army to establish a presence there,” the governor said during an interview with local media. “Now, we have to raise people’s awareness so that they report any irregular activities because these groups start taking over the mines and create deaths and displacements. We don’t want that.”

Díaz also said he is committed to protecting the moor – known as páramo in Spanish – as mining has been forbidden in the area since 2011.

“As governor, I have said that I will be the first defender of the water and the moors in this department. There cannot be mining here. I am committed to the promise that helped me win the elections, which focused on prioritizing the environment in tandem with human well-being.”

The Santurbán moor is a protected area of the Andes mountains. It is covered with subalpine forests above the continuous tree line but below the permanent snow mark, where water is naturally stored during the rainy season and released during the dry season. 

It is also the area surrounding the $1.2-billion Soto Norte gold project, presented by the Sociedad Minera de Santander (Minesa), a company owned by the government of Abu Dhabi through its investment arm Mubadala Investment Company. The proposal was shelved in 2020 by Colombia’s National Authority of Environmental Licences, under the argument that there were too many unanswered questions in Soto Norte’s environmental impact assessment and follow-up documentation submitted by Minesa.

The boundaries of Santurbán also needed to be reviewed. According to Colombia’s Constitutional Court, there wasn’t a clear and transparent consultation process with local communities when the boundaries were first established. Thus, their rights to a healthy environment and clean water could be at risk if mining and similar activities were allowed in surrounding areas.

In 2019, the Ministry of Environment was tasked with setting the boundaries, but according to the Attorney General’s Office and the Ombudsman’s Office, this process has been continuously delayed without explanation.  

The lack of proper delimitation paired with the ban on industrial mining has allowed small-scale, generally irregular operations to sprout.

To come up with this solution, the first thing the scientists had to do was transform molybdenum into molybdenum carbide using a carbon source. They discovered a cheap option in an unexpected place: the pantry. Surprisingly, sugar—the white, granulated kind found in nearly every household—served as an inexpensive, convenient source of carbon atoms.

Once this was done, the team was able to use the catalyst to transform CO2 into carbon monoxide (CO), an important building block to produce a variety of useful chemicals. When the reaction occurs in the presence of hydrogen, for example, CO2 and hydrogen transform into synthesis gas (or syngas), a highly valuable precursor to producing fuels that can potentially replace gasoline.

Operating at ambient pressures and high temperatures (300–600 degrees Celsius), the catalyst converted CO2 into CO with 100% selectivity.

High selectivity means that the catalyst acted only on the CO2 without disrupting surrounding materials. In other words, industry could apply the catalyst to large volumes of captured gases and selectively target only the CO2. The catalyst also remained stable over time, in other words, it stayed active and did not degrade.

“In chemistry, it’s not uncommon for a catalyst to lose its selectivity after a few hours,” Omar K. Farha, the study’s senior author, said in a media statement. “But after 500 hours in harsh conditions, its selectivity did not change.”

This is remarkable because CO2 is a stable—and stubborn—molecule.

“Converting CO2 is not easy,” Milad Khoshooei, co-lead author of the study, said. “CO2 is a chemically stable molecule, and we had to overcome that stability, which takes a lot of energy.”

Developing materials for carbon capture is a major focus of Farha’s laboratory. His group develops metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), a type of highly porous, nano-sized materials that are like “sophisticated and programmable bath sponges.” Farha explores MOFs for diverse applications, including pulling CO2 directly from the air.

In the researcher’s view, MOFs and the new catalyst could work together to play a role in carbon capture and sequestration.

“At some point, we could employ a MOF to capture CO2, followed by a catalyst converting it into something more beneficial,” Farha suggested. “A tandem system utilizing two distinct materials for two sequential steps could be the way forward.”

“This could help us answer the question: ‘What do we do with captured CO2?’,” Khoshooei said. “Right now, the plan is to sequester it underground. But underground reservoirs must meet many requirements in order to safely and permanently store CO2. We wanted to design a more universal solution that can be used anywhere while adding economic value.”

Talking at a conference organized by the Institute of Mining Engineers of Peru, the manager of Centinela, David Bayona, said that all the project development phases have been planned with a unique employment scheme in mind.

According to Bayona, project execution will be carried out under the modality of Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) type contracts, an approach that seeks to optimize efficiency and minimize risks. 

“This management model is based on the availability of specialized contractors and the transfer of risks and responsibilities,” Bayona said. “This is different from Engineering, Procurement and Construction and Management (EPCM) type contracts, where a professional service agreement is entered into and the contractor’s services are meant to provide detailed engineering, procurement, construction administration and the necessary coordination to deliver a project.”

The executive noted that, except for Algo American’s Quellaveco copper mine in southern Peru, most projects in the region have been done under the EPCM modality.

The 95,000-tonnes-per-day concentrator is expected to be finished in three years. So far, the initiative has involved 2,000 people but is expected to need another 11,000 workers at peak construction. 

Workers will be organized in a 14-14 system that would allow for half of the workforce to be on site for two weeks while the other half rests. 

Once the new concentrator is fully operational, Centinela is expected to produce more than 144,000 tonnes of fine copper, 130,000 ounces of gold and 3,500 tonnes of molybdenum. After ramping up, the project should add an additional 300,000 tonnes of copper to Antofagasta’s current annual output of 600,000 tonnes of the red metal. 

In a paper published in the IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics, the researchers behind the development explain that the welds would eliminate the need for plastic polymer sheets that are now laminated into solar modules but make recycling more difficult. At the end of their lifespan, the modules made with the laser welds can be shattered. The glass and metal wires running through the solar cells can be easily recycled and the silicon can be reused.

“Most recyclers will confirm that the polymers are the main issue in terms of inhibiting the process of recycling,” David Young, lead author of the article, said in a media statement.

Femtosecond laser

To carry out their experiment, the scientists employed a femtosecond laser which uses a short pulse of infrared light that melts glass together to form a strong, hermetic seal.

The glass weld can be used on any solar technology—silicon, perovskites, cadmium telluride—because the weld heat is confined to a few millimetres from the laser focus.

Solar modules are made of semiconductors designed to capture a specific portion of the solar spectrum, harnessing sunlight to create electricity. Typically, the semiconductors are sandwiched between two sheets of glass laminated with polymer sheets.

NREL’s research showed that glass/glass welds are essentially as strong as the glass itself.

“As long as the glass doesn’t break, the weld is not going to break,” Young said. “However, not having the polymers between the sheets of glass requires welded modules to be much stiffer. Our paper showed that with proper mounting and a modification to the embossed features of the rolled glass, a welded module can be made stiff enough to pass static load testing.”

This research is the first to employ a femtosecond laser to form glass/glass welds for use in a module. A different type of edge sealing using nanosecond lasers and a glass frit filler was tried in the past, but the welds proved too brittle for use in outdoor module designs. The femtosecond laser welds offer superior strength with hermetic sealing at a compelling cost.

Young said the study is “high risk, high reward,” but points to a direction for further research to extend the life of solar modules beyond 50 years and to allow easier recycling.

The ruling was issued in response to a lawsuit filed by lawyer Wilson Alexei Vallejo, who sought to nullify the results of the consultation in which the population voted against developments such as AngloGold Ashanti’s (NYSE: AU) La Colosa gold project.

Discovered in 2006, La Colosa holds an estimated 12 million ounces of resources. Mine construction was expected between 2014 and 2016, with production scheduled to start in 2016 or 2017. However, studies showed that the development would pose serious threats to the environment and locals, jeopardizing a river basin and reducing water supply for agriculture and consumption.

In response to such warnings, in 2017, the Cajamarca Committee Promoting the Popular Consultation organized the mining referendum. Out of 9,296 votes, 6,165 rejected mining in the area, with an emphasis on La Colosa. Since then, the project has been under force majeure.

The Cajamarca Municipal Council validated the referendum results and issued Agreement No. 003 of 2017, banning mining exploration and exploitation activities in the municipality. 

The recent decision, thus, solidifies the validity of Agreement No. 003 of 2017. 

According to the judge, Vallejo’s lawsuit failed to prove false motivation and a violation of the rules.

The plaintiff argued that subsequent rulings by Colombia’s Constitutional Court, namely SU-095 of 2018 and C-053 of 2019, which limited the scope of popular referenda, invalidated Agreement No. 003 of 2017. 

Since the Constitutional Court’s rulings were not retroactive, “it is impossible to ignore a citizen participation mechanism that was adopted under previous regulations, despite the fact that the Court has changed its stance,” the Judicial Coalition for the Defense of Cajamarca said in a media statement.

In the Coalition’s view, the ruling protects the citizen mandate and acts as a call to national authorities to effectively implement the results of the consultation, thus updating public policies related to environmental assessments and mining concessions. 

The fine resulted from an investigation for possible breaches of the Water Code launched in July 2021 by the Regional Water Directorate, which belongs to the Coquimbo Public Infrastructure Ministry.

In addition to the financial penalty, Los Pelambres was ordered to immediately stop unauthorized water extractions and abide by the water distribution rules established by the Choapa River Surveillance Board. 

The miner was also urged to comply with each of the resolutions granted in its water use permit and to send to the DGA all the records of water extractions that must be reported through the Effective Extractions Monitoring System so that the directorate can verify that the water being extracted corresponds to the water use right granted.

“After the on-site inspection and analysis of all the background information and additional requests made, it was concluded that in the case of four intakes and eight wells, more water was extracted than what was allowed according to the 6% pro rata that the Choapa River Surveillance Board authorized based on the existing river flow and according to the prevailing scarcity conditions,” the DGA said in a media statement.

“Additionally, in those same four intakes or collection sites of surface waters, Minera Pelambres did not comply with the same proration rule that governed the rest of the Choapa River Surveillance Board users, that is, the mining company did not comply with the DGA requirement to respect the Board’s distribution standard.”

The Directorate pointed out that at the time of the field inspection, a water scarcity zone decree was in force in the Coquimbo region, the Choapa River basin was exhausted and the hydrogeological sector of Choapa Alto had been declared a prohibition zone. These conditions were considered aggravating factors that increased the amount of the fine. 

Minera Los Pelambres maintains that it has always acted in accordance with current water regulations, both at the time of the inspection and currently.

“The company is analyzing the legal course to follow, since it is certain that it has historically complied with all the provisions that the authorities have established in water matters, making use of their legally constituted water rights,” Marisol Díaz, public affairs manager of Minera Los Pelambres, said in an emailed statement.

The central Coquimbo region has been experiencing severe drought for the past 15 years. Thus, three water redistribution agreements have been approved in the Limarí River basin to prioritize human consumption, while in Choapa, the agreement that ordered water redistribution in the jurisdiction of the Choapa River Surveillance Board, in accordance with article 314 of the Water Code on severe drought, was approved with conditions.

In December 2022, Minera Los Pelambres filed an appeal against the DGA Exempt Resolution No. 3579 to counteract the Choapa River agreement. However, it was rejected by the Santiago Court of Appeal on December 12, 2023.

Water is needed in copper smelting, and in the concentrator, which breaks down raw ore and processes it into usable material.

In March 2024, Antofagasta inaugurated a more than $2-billion desalination plant for Los Pelambres, aimed at relieving the effects of the drought and supporting the operation’s multi-billion dollar expansion.

The appeal, backed by NGOs Sustainable Aconcagua, Corporation for the Preservation and Rehabilitation of Andean Fauna, Santa María Assembly for the Environment and Heritage, and Wanaku Akunkawa, focuses both on environmental protection and the right of the communities surrounding Juncal Park to live in a pollution-free environment. 

Nutrex requested Chilean authorities a deadline extension to present the required documents to start working in the area, as it had until April 16, 2024, to establish its presence on the site by setting up equipment and some infrastructure but couldn’t do so after being blocked by environmental activists. 

If the extension is denied, which is one of the aims of the appeal for protection, activists would have more time to build their case, as Nutrex would have to restart the whole process and this could take up to a year. 

“We have gained some time, but we also know that they have been able to enter the park and that is, of course, a threat not only to biodiversity and a particular park but to a fundamental issue that is water in our region,” Bello told local media.

Juncal, whose heights range from 2,200 metres to more than 5,000 metres above sea level, is a private protected area owned by the Kenrick family since 1911.

The park extends for over 13,700 hectares and is located in the Aconcagua Valley, in Chile’s Fifth Region. It provides access to the Juncal Glacier and surrounding mountains and hosts several estuaries, wetlands, ice and rock glaciers, and a wide range of native and endemic species of flora and fauna. It is also the place where the Juncal River, a tributary of the Aconcagua River, is born. Both are important sources of freshwater for the region.

According to Chile’s laws, however, owners of surface rights do not own what’s underground, which is why Nutrex, an American gold and copper explorer, is allowed to request access to explore the area. 

In a press release, UMPC said that after two years of negotiations between the Catamarca government and a consortium of foreign companies, an accord to start exploring and developing the Rio Grande Sur lithium brine salar project was signed.

Rio Grande Sur occupies 9,000 hectares and is situated in Catamarca’s northwest.

The half-a-billion-dollar fund is to be used to build mine infrastructure, extract the battery metal and process it.

The project is forecast to create 700 jobs during the construction phase and keep 200 during the production phase, generating $168 million for the local economy. 

Catamarca is Argentina’s top lithium-producing province, totalling 20,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE) generated every year and hosting most of the country’s exploration projects. Neighbouring Salta and Jujuy are also rich in the battery metal and, together, they are part of the Lithium Table, a regional government initiative that aims to standardize policies related to sustainable lithium extraction and processing.

In total, Argentina produces 34,000 tonnes of LCE annually, being the fourth top producer in the world behind Australia, Chile and China. In 2023, exports totalled over $500 million, with a year-on-year growth of 84%.

Over the next two years, five lithium projects currently under construction are expected to go into production in Jujuy, Salta and Catamarca, while there are another 30 advanced exploration initiatives in the pipeline, which may become operative in the medium and long term.

Recent forecasts see the ‘land of tango’ reaching up to 260,000 tonnes of LCE annually by 2027, which would allow it to become the world’s third-largest player. 

The country, together with Chile and Bolivia, is part of the Lithium Triangle, a unique stripe of high-altitude land covered with lakes and white salt flats that hosts more than half of global identified lithium resources.