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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


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  • (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.