Waste to Value Center

Innovative Mining for Critical Minerals

Extracting Critical Minerals from unconventional sources maximizes resource recovery, mineral security and environmental stewardship.

Innovative Mining for Critical Minerals

Scientists at Colorado School of Mines are working to enable the economic recovery of Critical Minerals as by-products from active and abandoned mine sites. Today, active mines are optimized solely for primary metals – many Critical Minerals are discarded as waste or stored in tailings facilities that require long-term environmental management. Abandoned hardrock mine sites are host to unkown quantities of Critical Minerals

in solid and liquid form. In a new interdisciplinary center that begins with geologic feedstock analysis and follows through to site-specific pilot design and testing, Mines’ scientists aim to support the development of domestic supplies of these minerals while simultaneously addressing legacy and future environmental impacts. Social and economic analyses will embed this technological development in real-world scenarios.

In a new Center with a targeted $10 million annual budget, Mines aims for impact in a 10:10:10 framework: In 10 years, a 10 percent reduction in mine waste and a 10 percent reduction in Critical Mineral imports. Contact us to get involved!

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