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

随着全球人口和经济继续以惊人的速度增长，这使得对制造日常电子产品、救生医疗设备和未来清洁能源技术（即，太阳能电池板、风力涡轮机、用于电动车辆的电池等）。五种关键金属所需的量（即，锂、镍、钴、铜和稀土元素（REEs）将在未来几十年内呈指数级增长。传统的采矿实践使用高消耗的能源和化学品来进行金属动员，并且为了确保盈利，工业倾向于使用高品位的金属矿石作为原材料，这导致快速枯竭。这些采矿做法造成数百万吨的尾矿废物，这些尾矿以水坝的形式存在，给世界的景观留下疤痕。由于矿石品位下降，废料的数量也在增加（因为低品位矿石会产生更多的尾矿废料）。然而，尾矿中仍然含有有价值的金属，对其进行再加工可以将这种被认为是废物的废物转化为替代的有价值的资源。通过建立新的生物制造工艺，从尾矿中提取金属的领域现在有可能发生转型变革。交叉废物矿物处理领域（即，利用微生物反应器系统对废矿石进行无定形化处理，这对未来的清洁金属制造具有巨大的潜力，清洁金属制造也从一开始就关注循环经济。该项目联盟将建立可持续的微生物生物制造工艺，从矿山废弃物尾矿中提取关键的重要金属。这个5Ms项目将提供一个优化的微生物生物反应器示范模型，并将展示如何将生产和加工的生物质（球形）颗粒用于二级市场应用，以完成循环经济循环，完成生命周期和技术经济分析。

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