[ Nickel / Deepsea Mining ]
[ Nickel / Deepsea Mining ]
Climate-friendly metals from deep-sea ores
If manganese nodules can be mined in an environmentally friendly way, the critical metals can be produced with low CO2 emissions. Scientists have now extracted elemental copper from deep-sea ore by simply melting it in an electric-arc furnace. Using hydrogen plasma as the reducing agent then creates an alloy that contains, among other elements, nickel and cobalt.
Text & images by Peter Hergersberg, Max Planck Society
Ubaid Manzoor adjusting the hydrogen partial pressure in the electric arc furnace to extract copper, nickel and cobalt from deep-sea polymetallic nodules. Copyright: Max- Planck-Institut für Nachhaltige Materialien GmbH
The demand for metals will increase significantly in the coming years, primarily because the climate-friendly transformation of the economy is only possible through the electrification of
First use of nickel
industrial processes, transport and heat generation. By 2050, around 60 million tonnes of copper will be needed for electric motors and the expansion of the electricity grid. Moreover, depending on how battery technology develops, a further 10 million tonnes of nickel and 1.4 million tonnes of cobalt may also be required. Demand for copper and nickel would therefore more than double by the middle of the century, while demand for cobalt could increase fivefold.
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Plating 5 %
Alloy steels 3 %
Foundries 2 %
Others 2 %
Source: Nickel Institute
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Nickel-based alloys 6 %
Stainless steel 66 %
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Batteries 16 % |
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Heavy environmental impact The extraction of metals always has a negative impact on the environment. Large areas of forest are repeatedly cleared for nickel and cobalt mining. And the mining of cobalt in particular often takes place under very questionable social conditions: according to UNICEF, children are often sent to work in the mines. The ores found on land also contain only a very small proportion of the metals sought. For every tonne of copper mined from deposits on land, some 200 tonnes of waste are produced, and taken together, the annual production of copper, nickel and cobalt generates between 4 and 5 billion tonnes of unusable rock and slag. An alternative to land-based mining is the extraction of deep-sea ore nodules, commonly known as manganese nodules, which, besides large amounts of manganese, also contain a significant proportion of copper, nickel and cobalt. They are found in large quantities in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone in the Pacific. A team from the Max Planck Institute for Sustainable Materials has now presented |
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