Dear all,
Trade restrictions on critical minerals continue to be imposed by competing powers (FT - China on some rare earth processing technologies) and they could well increase the cost of the climate transition (IMF survey). All regions are anyhow very busy improving their independence: EU with the newly adopted Critical Minerals Act (Reuters), US with developing a new generation of mining workers (CNBC), all with recycling strategies but maybe China ahead (Mining.com) and all also on reviewing the most efficient extraction technologies such as these for lithium (Mining.com). And one question remains about which role the minerals rich Democratic Republic of the Congo can play in such a complex environment (News Base).
Positive developments in materials science include trials to capture carbon from mine waste and turning it into rock by BHP and Arca in Canada (the New Daily), a method for efficient lithium recovery at CNRS/Nanyang University (Science Direct), the use of polyethylene waste (PE) as a feedstock for valuable chemicals at University of Adelaide (Science Daily), making single crystal nickel rich cathodes for longer lasting batteries at Pacific Northwest National Lab (Mining.com), tuning alloys and making them both tough and flexible (UCLA), reviewing the role of graphene in the next generation of chips (The Guardian), interdisciplinary collaboration - electronics and battery materials - to improve resistive switching devices at University of Chicago (Next Materials), and the use of a public database for developing inorganic materials (Science).
Regarding sustainability initiatives, we selected 4: a proposal to increase populations of wildebeest as a valuable way to tackle climate change (BBC), the selective extraction of high-value metals, like niobium, tantalum, and tin, from low-concentration waste materials (Boston Metals), building solar farms rather than planting forests to tackle climate change in arid regions (Science Daily) and the world’s first solar power truck (EuroNews).
Finally 8 of our Start-Up alumni were in the news last month: one joint development of "made with UBQ" products at Keter (UBQ MATERIALS - Israel), 2 successful funding rounds (CompPair – Switzerland, NITRICITY - USA) and of course many interesting press articles (BRIMSTONE ENERGY - USA, CYCLOPURE - USA, GRAPHENEMG - Australia, MITRACHEM - USA, NITRICITY - USA, UBQ MATERIALS - Israel, Zeta Energy – USA).
