Copper compounds (blue) can be extracted from solution using microorganisms — a process known as bioleaching. Credit: Dirk Wiersma/Science Photo Library
The clean-energy transition is creating a paradox. To expand renewable-energy technologies, electrify transport and build infrastructure for artificial intelligence, society must extract unprecedented quantities of minerals. Demand for many of these ‘critical minerals’ is projected to increase several-fold over the coming decades1. Yet, the technologies used to obtain them remain rooted in an old model through which single metals are extracted from virgin ore2.
The consequences are increasingly apparent (see ‘Critical-mineral supply under pressure’). As deposits of high-grade ores decline, larger quantities of rock must be mined and processed to produce the same amount of metal3. That requires more energy and water. Mining accounts for around 1.7% of global energy consumption and this number is projected to rise by up to eight-fold by 20604. Many critical-mineral projects operate in regions facing high water stress, such as arid parts of Africa and Latin America1.
Sources: Top to bottom: Ref. 3; ref. 3; ref. 6 and go.nature.com/4nzbbnx
Mining waste is growing, too. Already, hundreds of billions of tonnes of mine tailings are stored globally. Projections suggest that by 2050, up to two trillion tonnes of extra waste rock and tailings will have accumulated3,5.
Meanwhile, society is producing vast quantities of metal-rich waste that remain a mostly untapped secondary source of metals. In 2022, 62 million tonnes of electronic waste (e-waste) was produced globally — almost 8 kilograms for every person on the planet — and only around 22% of that was formally collected and recycled6.
How to widen access to the critical minerals that the world needs
Many discarded electronics contain valuable metals, including gold, palladium and rare-earth elements — in concentrations that can exceed those found in primary ores. However, recovering these metals remains technically challenging and is often economically unattractive using conventional approaches.
Retrieval of metals and increasing metal circularity should be seen as a strategic capability to offset the growth of metal extraction from virgin ores. Nations that can efficiently recover critical minerals from waste streams, mine residues and low-grade resources will be less exposed to geopolitical disruptions and supply-chain shocks7.
Biology offers a powerful route forwards. Although biomining — which uses microorganisms to extract metals — was once considered a niche approach, it has evolved. Driven by advances in microbial ecology, synthetic biology, structural biology, protein engineering and machine learning, the scientific foundations for a new generation of mineral biotechnologies are emerging at speed8,9. These methods offer potential levels of selectivity for extracting and recovering certain metals that are often difficult to achieve through conventional hydrometallurgical processes.
But, scientific progress alone will not transform mineral supply chains. The main obstacle is no longer a shortage of ideas. It is a lack of pathways from scientific discovery to industrial deployment. Here we outline how to develop those pathways, drawing on discussions at the International Workshop on Biomining of Critical Minerals and Elements, which was sponsored by the Novo Nordisk Foundation and held in Sitges, Spain, in September last year.
Promising technologies
Biotechnologies have demonstrated their industrial potential for decades. Bioleaching and biooxidation processes are already established for recovering copper, nickel, gold and cobalt from ores10. They involve irrigating heaps of crushed ore or treating ground mineral powders with specialist microbes that generate chemicals, such as acids or modifiers of reduction–oxidation reactions, that selectively dissolve either target metals or other minerals found with them.
Advances in synthetic biology have expanded the range of potential applications. For example, engineered microbial systems can be designed to dissolve metals more effectively. Biomolecules (such as the protein lanmodulin) can separate rare-earth elements with yields of 99.9% in one step under conditions that are simpler than conventional techniques, using aqueous solutions rather than organic solvents8,11. AI-assisted protein design is further accelerating the discovery of macromolecules designed to selectively recognize, bind to and separate target metals from complex solutions of several elements9.
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Collectively, these developments suggest that biotechnology could become an important component of future critical-mineral supply chains. However, many promising approaches never progress beyond being validated in the laboratory. They often stall between proof-of-concept studies and commercial demonstration, a challenge familiar throughout industrial biotechnology. Even promising technologies often struggle to attract the capital, infrastructure and industrial partnerships needed to scale them up12,13.
Barriers must be overcome. Although a few bioprocessing pilot projects exist, their capacity is insufficient to evaluate technologies across the diverse types of ore, feedstock and process conditions encountered in practice. Investors are reluctant to finance first-of-a-kind projects when it is uncertain how well they will perform in the real world.
Regulatory frameworks for emerging biomining technologies are also inadequate. They often vary across biotechnology, environmental and mining sectors and between jurisdictions. Developers might need to navigate several regulatory authorities and approval pathways, creating uncertainty and delays as technologies advance.
Electronic waste can contain higher concentrations of key metals than are found in natural ores.Credit: Martin Bernetti/AFP via Getty
In the European Union, for example, the use of genetically modified microorganisms and their environmental applications are subject to distinct regulatory frameworks. Genetically modified microorganisms are allowed to be used in contained systems, whereas those used for field applications generally rely on naturally occurring or adapted microbial strains. The United States uses a coordinated multi-agency approach, involving the Environmental Protection Agency, the Food and Drug Administration and the US Department of Agriculture.
Valuable technical knowledge (on protein engineering, mineral characterization, hydrometallurgy and economic modelling, for instance) remains dispersed across disciplines, institutions and jurisdictions. This makes it difficult to generate the necessary evidence base — including long-term continuous operating data, metrics for tracking chemical cycles and validated economic assessments — to support large-scale adoption of such technologies.
The result is a growing mismatch. Scientific advances in mineral biotechnology are accelerating, yet the mechanisms needed to deploy them are not keeping pace. Although billions of dollars are being invested to secure future supply chains for critical minerals, comparatively little attention has been devoted to building the innovation systems required to commercialize biological solutions.
If biotechnology is to contribute meaningfully to critical-mineral security, environmental sustainability and circularity of resource use, then governments, industry, development banks and philanthropic funders must move beyond supporting research alone. They must invest in the institutions that enable translation of these new technologies as well.
Three priorities deserve attention.
Establish test facilities
Countries should establish shared pilot and demonstration facilities dedicated to mineral biotechnology. Individual companies often cannot justify the risks associated with developing specialized infrastructure for technologies that remain commercially unproven. Shared facilities can help to overcome this barrier by allowing several organizations to evaluate biological processes using realistic feedstocks under industrially relevant conditions. These facilities can support both pre-commercial and competitive studies. Similar approaches have been implemented successfully in synthetic biology and bio-refining, advanced manufacturing and in the clean-energy and semiconductor sectors.
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For the mineral sector, such facilities should be located near relevant resource and waste streams, including mining districts, e-waste recycling hubs and sites affected by acid mine drainage or metal-laden urban waste waters. They should have connections to universities, research labs and a skilled workforce.
Access to research and engineering expertise would enable rapid iteration, troubleshooting and integration of mineral biotechnologies with established processes. Such sites would extend beyond technology testing to generate the operational, environmental and economic data needed to inform investment decisions, regulatory approvals and commercial deployment.
Initiatives in other sectors illustrates the value of such infrastructure. In Sweden, for instance, publicly funded pilot and demonstration facilities have been set up to test processes for biochemically converting biomass under realistic conditions14.
