Unlocking Geochemical Analysis for the Critical Minerals Energy Transition

As the world looks to make the change between fossil fuels towards the use of cleaner energy sources, a demand has emerged, one that is increasing, for specific minerals, including copper, rare earth elements (REEs), cobalt, lithium, and nickel. The success of the critical minerals energy transition will depend upon technologies that ensure these minerals are uncovered, extracted, handled, and recycled both sustainably and efficiently. Geochemical analysis tools can be used to realize the critical minerals energy transition, possessing the capabilities to find, recognize, and evaluate the minerals. Let’s take a look at these technologies and learn about their role in the critical minerals energy transition.

How Can Geochemical Analysis Help With The Critical Minerals Energy Transition?

Geochemical analysis techniques can be utilized to support the critical minerals energy transition. These methods are able to find, extract, and handle the critical minerals needed by clean energy apparatus and deliver data that makes sure the resources are used in an ethical and sustainable manner.

1. Locating Resources

Mineral deposits contain materials that clean energy technologies require, including REEs, nickel, and cobalt. Geochemical analysis methods can be utilized to uncover and analyse these mineral deposits. X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) analysis is able to recognize different elements within a sample. This technique can be used to discover mineral deposits. It can pick out and measure elements within soil, sediments, and rocks. These abilities extend further, as XRF analysis can identify critical mineral concentrations, including those from cobalt and REEs. Ergo they can help geologists accurately uncover locations that likely contain the minerals.

Moreover, XRF can be applied to uncovering and studying resources that may be deemed as unconventional, but are of use to the energy transition. In deep-sea diving, this technique is utilized to examine polymetallic nodules and crusts from the floor of the ocean because they contain nickel and cobalt. It can also be applied to study coal ash to see if it’s possible to reclaim REEs.

2. Resource Extraction

Selective mining is used to help retrieve and process minerals, delivering data on the distribution and composition of minerals available within a deposit. It hones in on the materials that are needed, helping to deliver targeted extraction. At the same time, it can lower the amount of waste produced and disruption experienced by the land. A number of techniques can be utilized for selective mining, such as:

• Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS): Locates trace elements, for instance REEs, that are available in reduced concentrations and can make sure zones containing minerals are targeted precisely.
• Geochemical Mapping: Studies a variety of samples throughout a region to deliver a map that shows critical element distributions, revealing which areas have larger concentrations of minerals.
• XRF: Understands elemental compositions and, thus, is able to identify element concentrations, including those of nickel, cobalt, and lithium. This method can help reduce processing, as it can differentiate waste rock from ore.

3. Recycling

Geochemical analysis techniques can also help with recycling critical minerals. They establish an opportunity to move away from utilizing virgin resources, in other words materials that are newly mined. Being able to recycle critical minerals, for instance cobalt and lithium, from previously used products, such as wind turbines and EV batteries, ensures there’s a good material supply and that waste can be reduced. XRF has the capability to quickly examine batteries, scrap materials, and electronics to discern their elemental compositions. From this, it can recognize the materials that contain valuable elements.

4. Protecting The Environment

Geochemical analysis is applied to mitigate the harmful effects that occur to the environment when extracting critical minerals. It can be used just before mining starts to undertake soil testing. Through this, mineral and metal concentrations can be examined to see if any alterations occur due to the mining. Moreover, water sampling, with ICP-MS, a geochemical analysis technique, provides measurements of trace elements in surface water. Using ICP-MS for water sampling can ultimately deliver insights about the quality of the natural water. 

Techniques that incorporate geochemical analysis can also be used throughout operations to see if there’s any environmental degradation or pollution. For instance, portable XRF devices can study concentrations of heavy metals in soils which are close to the mining. These tools can help keep an eye on the spread of contamination.

Utilize Geochemical Analysis Techniques on Critical Minerals For The Energy Transition

Making the jump from fossil fuels to clean energy was always going to come with its challenges. However, the use of geochemical analysis techniques can support this change. There are a variety of different geochemical analysis techniques that aid the critical minerals energy transition, like XRF analysis. When you need to apply XRF analysis to critical minerals, we, XRF Scientific, are here to help. Our website contains products that can support your work. They include items for sample preparation and XRF spectrometers. Your research is key to finding critical minerals, so let us provide you with the products you need to get started. That way you can be part of the solution that brings new clean energy technology into existence.