Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by janrinok on Monday January 23 2023, @05:23AM   Printer-friendly
from the I-can-pull-Rare-Earth-from-my-album-collection dept.

Rare earth elements could be pulled from coal waste:

In Appalachia's coal country, researchers envision turning toxic waste into treasure. The pollution left behind by abandoned mines is an untapped source of rare earth elements.

Rare earths are a valuable set of 17 elements needed to make everything from smartphones and electric vehicles to fluorescent bulbs and lasers. With global demand skyrocketing and China having a near-monopoly on rare earth production — the United States has only one active mine — there's a lot of interest in finding alternative sources, such as ramping up recycling.

Pulling rare earths from coal waste offers a two-for-one deal: By retrieving the metals, you also help clean up the pollution.

Long after a coal mine closes, it can leave a dirty legacy. When some of the rock left over from mining is exposed to air and water, sulfuric acid forms and pulls heavy metals from the rock. This acidic soup can pollute waterways and harm wildlife.

Recovering rare earths from what's called acid mine drainage won't single-handedly satisfy rising demand for the metals, acknowledges Paul Ziemkiewicz, director of the West Virginia Water Research Institute in Morgantown. But he points to several benefits.

Unlike ore dug from typical rare earth mines, the drainage is rich with the most-needed rare earth elements. Plus, extraction from acid mine drainage also doesn't generate the radioactive waste that's typically a by-product of rare earth mines, which often contain uranium and thorium alongside the rare earths. And from a practical standpoint, existing facilities to treat acid mine drainage could be used to collect the rare earths for processing. "Theoretically, you could start producing tomorrow," Ziemkiewicz says.

From a few hundred sites already treating acid mine drainage, nearly 600 metric tons of rare earth elements and cobalt — another in-demand metal — could be produced annually, Ziemkiewicz and colleagues estimate.

Related: Sweden Finds Largest-Ever Rare Earth Metal Deposit In Europe


Original Submission

 
This discussion was created by janrinok (52) for logged-in users only, but now has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by MrGuy on Monday January 23 2023, @04:31PM (3 children)

    by MrGuy (1007) on Monday January 23 2023, @04:31PM (#1288199)

    is the cost and impact of doing that recovery. Is it economically or ecologically viable? Do we create more waste, and is it harmful? How much energy is used? How much equipment? Valuable catalysts? What does it cost, and how does it compare to the cost of mining?

    A kilogram of used cell phones contains more gold than a kilogram of gold ore. But that fact in itself doesn't make mining e-waste for gold a good idea. What happens to all the things that AREN'T gold in the cell phones?

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +1  
       Interesting=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   3  
  • (Score: 2) by higuita on Tuesday January 24 2023, @01:08AM

    by higuita (2465) on Tuesday January 24 2023, @01:08AM (#1288280)

    see my above reply

    also notice that people do recycle old computer and get money of it... usually recovered gold pays the initial cost, platinum pays the time and work, other multiple cheaper components usually are the profit... so no, you don't get rich, but it is usually profit...
    the major problem is the initial cost, while many times ending in the trash, trying to get those parts usually have a somewhat high cost, so it is a stupid cycle that it costs too much to buy to recycle, but as there is no recycle, ends in the trash... just like people asking stupid amount of money for a rent, but as it is so expensive, they can't rent it, getting no money anyway. This is one thing that the governments may need to act and force prices and collect and distribution centers, to end the chicken and egg problem
    So one of the main problems of "mining" e-waste is getting enough quantity of that e-waste, specially at a reasonable cost

    Finally, as most cell phones are (again) build on china, there is also the cost of selling those recycled components back to china, they will just buy their own internal production and only buy externally if really needed... but they also favor their own externally working mining companies

  • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday January 24 2023, @01:11AM

    by Immerman (3985) on Tuesday January 24 2023, @01:11AM (#1288281)

    You ask some pertinent questions.

    On the plus side, they're looking to create a profit center in waste management.

    One of the benefits of reprocessing waste is that *something* already needed to be done about it - whether that's just hauling it to the dump, more expensive water treatment downstream, or more expensive health problems because you didn't.

    Play your cards right, and you can actually get paid for waste disposal in addition to selling whatever you're producing. At it's best that can deliver cheaper waste disposal, cheaper product X, *and* turn a tidy profit off a technology that might not (yet?) be cheap enough to do either job cost effectively on its own.

    I mean, he's literally talking about extracting heavy metals from highly toxic mining sludge otherwise destined to (eventually) enter the water supply. Producing even nastier waste as a byproduct? It's not impossible... but you'd have to be trying pretty hard.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 25 2023, @02:55AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 25 2023, @02:55AM (#1288475)

    A kilogram of used cell phones contains more gold than a kilogram of gold ore. But that fact in itself doesn't make mining e-waste for gold a good idea. What happens to all the things that AREN'T gold in the cell phones?

    Actually the mining stuff makes sense IF you manage to get a LOT of ewaste in the same spot so that using mining machines etc become worth it. But it has to be a HUGE mountain of ewaste. Just a ton or ten is nothing.

    Remember- there's lots of other stuff around too that isn't gold when they're doing conventional mining for gold. Probably even less valuable. In contrast ewaste has higher concentrations of copper, silver, platinum not just gold.

    So sort and landfill huge amounts of similar stuff together and future generations may be grateful to us for producing such nice rich deposits.