Critical metals from secondary sources
Supporting efficient recycling of the UK’s existing raw materials
People:
Dr Charlie Kirkwood, Craig Withers
Partners:
Critical Minerals Challenge Centre, Camborne School of Mines
Media links:
https://criticalmineralschallengecentre.co.uk/
Technical approaches:
Geospatial intelligence, agentic literature search, expert elicitation, knowledge-based modelling, visualisation.
Challenge areas:
Technical foundations for effective environmental data use; Earth observation, remote sensing & geospatial intelligence.
Society requires raw materials to create and maintain the infrastructure and products that we are surrounded by. Though we often take this for granted, these raw materials are to varying degrees critical to our society and the economy.
The renewable energy transition is shifting demand for raw materials towards 'tech metals’ such as lithium for batteries, and rare earth elements (e.g. neodymium) for magnets used in turbines (e.g. wind, hydro) and motors.
Raw materials like these are traditionally mined from the ground (the primary source), but what if we could make better use of the materials that we have already mined?
This project seeks to estimate, quantify, and map the secondary sources of critical metals across the UK, for example in electronic devices and building materials, in both residential and industrial domains.
Doing so will help to inform recycling and remanufacturing policy in the UK, steering us towards a more sustainable future and perhaps reducing our dependence on mining.
Find out more about the Critical Minerals Challenge Centre
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