Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE240100582
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$390,000.00
Summary
Unlocking Rare Earth Elements from the Earth Crust. This project will explore the mechanisms controlling the mobility of Rare Earth Elements (REE) in natural and engineered hydrothermal systems. The project will generate essential geochemical and thermodynamic data of important REE host minerals, and thereby significantly improve our capacity to quantify the behaviour of REE during complex ore-forming and hydrometallurgical processes. The anticipated outcomes include: facilitate discovery of new ....Unlocking Rare Earth Elements from the Earth Crust. This project will explore the mechanisms controlling the mobility of Rare Earth Elements (REE) in natural and engineered hydrothermal systems. The project will generate essential geochemical and thermodynamic data of important REE host minerals, and thereby significantly improve our capacity to quantify the behaviour of REE during complex ore-forming and hydrometallurgical processes. The anticipated outcomes include: facilitate discovery of new REE deposits by improving understanding of their formation; and facilitate optimisation and development of innovative techniques for REE ore processing. This knowledge and expertise will help Australia to become a world leader in supplying REE for the transition to a carbon-neutral economy.Read moreRead less
Realising Australia’s rare earth resource potential. This project aims to reveal the potential for undiscovered economic deposits of rare earth elements within the Australian continent. Future supply of these elements underpins societies transition to clean energy and embrace of high-tech applications. The project expects to greatly enhance our knowledge of Australia’s endowment of rare earth element resources using an array of traditional and innovative geological research methods. Expected out ....Realising Australia’s rare earth resource potential. This project aims to reveal the potential for undiscovered economic deposits of rare earth elements within the Australian continent. Future supply of these elements underpins societies transition to clean energy and embrace of high-tech applications. The project expects to greatly enhance our knowledge of Australia’s endowment of rare earth element resources using an array of traditional and innovative geological research methods. Expected outcomes of this project include a greater understanding of how, where and when rare earth element orebodies form in the Earth's crust. This should provide significant benefits to exploring for––and discovering––new orebodies that are required to secure global critical metal supplies. Read moreRead less
Fluid chemistry and critical mineral enrichment in salty metamorphic belts. Several geological regions in Australia are worth billions of dollars to our economy in their contained copper-goldcobalt and uranium-rare earth element mineral deposits. These regions will continue to be important to Australia as the world transitions to a renewable energy economy because they can provide some of the most critical metals needed for that transition: Cu, Co, rare earth elements. This project aims to provi ....Fluid chemistry and critical mineral enrichment in salty metamorphic belts. Several geological regions in Australia are worth billions of dollars to our economy in their contained copper-goldcobalt and uranium-rare earth element mineral deposits. These regions will continue to be important to Australia as the world transitions to a renewable energy economy because they can provide some of the most critical metals needed for that transition: Cu, Co, rare earth elements. This project aims to provide a fundamental quatitative understanding of the geological processes that form these deposits. We will conduct experiments to generate quantitative models of the metamorphic and structural processes that control the liberation and migration of highly saline fluids, which are ideal for transporting a large range of metals.Read moreRead less
Rare Earth Metal Separation by Polymer Inclusion Membranes. The project aims to develop a novel hydrometallurgical method for the separation of the rare earth metals dysprosium and terbium from mixed rare earth metal solutions using polymer inclusion membranes with a crosslinked or non-crosslinked polymer backbone. These metals are crucial for the manufacturing of advanced technology products. The membrane-based method is expected to offer significant advantages over the currently used solvent e ....Rare Earth Metal Separation by Polymer Inclusion Membranes. The project aims to develop a novel hydrometallurgical method for the separation of the rare earth metals dysprosium and terbium from mixed rare earth metal solutions using polymer inclusion membranes with a crosslinked or non-crosslinked polymer backbone. These metals are crucial for the manufacturing of advanced technology products. The membrane-based method is expected to offer significant advantages over the currently used solvent extraction methods by eliminating the use of solvents and conducting the separation as a continuous process where the extraction and back-extraction steps take place simultaneously. These advantages are expected to make the separation process more cost-effective and drastically reduce its environmental impact.Read moreRead less
Bio-recovery of rare earth elements from Australian soils and mine tailings. This project aims to discover how microbes dissolve weathering-resistant phosphate minerals that contain valuable rare earth elements used widely in modern technology. This discovery would create new knowledge in the interdisciplinary fields of biogeochemistry and biohydrometallurgy, using an innovative combination of techniques in metagenomics, microbiology and mineralogy. Expected research outcomes include new, more ....Bio-recovery of rare earth elements from Australian soils and mine tailings. This project aims to discover how microbes dissolve weathering-resistant phosphate minerals that contain valuable rare earth elements used widely in modern technology. This discovery would create new knowledge in the interdisciplinary fields of biogeochemistry and biohydrometallurgy, using an innovative combination of techniques in metagenomics, microbiology and mineralogy. Expected research outcomes include new, more economic and environmentally sustainable biotechnologies for recovering rare earth elements and increasing phosphorus availability in Australian mineral deposits and soils. These outcomes should benefit the mining and agricultural sectors, by decreasing Australia's dependency on overseas REE supply and the use of fertilizers.Read moreRead less