Technology requires a lot of minerals. And many of these are buried in the ground and given fancy names like “rare-earth metals.”
But scientists are finding ways to “mine” the minerals without digging into the ground!
The weirdest ways scientists are mining for critical minerals, from water to weeds [Grist] – “For more than a century, eccentric scientists have dreamed of wringing precious metals from the Earth’s most vast resource: its oceans. The seas contain millions to trillions of metric tons of gold, cobalt, and other elements, including 17,000 times more lithium than the world’s terrestrial reserves. Unlike more controversial forms of deep-sea mining that require dredging the ocean floor, these dissolved minerals can be extracted directly from the ocean water itself.”
And it’s working.
“As part of an Department of Energy experimental research program, they developed a system to pump seawater into onshore grow tanks full of a type of mineral-loving seaweed called Ulva. From there, they harvested and dried the seaweed, then processed it into the mineral-rich powder, which they dubbed “bio-ore.” This powder contains precious elements like nickel, cobalt, and rare earths at levels thousands of times higher than seawater. For example, concentrations of the rare earth element neodymium — an essential component in wind turbines — can be up to 479,000 times higher than the original seawater.”
This is so cool!