Speaker: Dr. Chen Zhu
Title: How mineral-water interactions relate to critical minerals, carbon sequestration, and water resources
Hosted by: Paul Schroeder
Critical minerals are crucial to the deployment of technologies spanning renewable energy, electronics, and beyond. Mineral-water interaction plays a fundamental role in the metal transport in geological systems, formation of hydrothermal and supergene ore deposits, chemical extraction (hydrometallurgy) of ores, recycling of industrial wastes, and environmental impact assessments of mining. In this seminar, I will discuss our research on measuring the solubility of major rare earth element (REE) ore minerals, REE coprecipitation with iron oxyhydroxide, and the development of an internally consistent thermodynamic database for REE minerals and solids. Additionally, I will discuss our geochemical modeling study of experiments that integrate the extraction of critical metals – nickel (Ni) and cobalt (Co) – with CO2 sequestration. These results highlight a potential pathway to overcome the economic barriers to carbon sequestration and underscore expanded applications of geochemical reaction kinetics.
The urgent demand for critical minerals presents an opportunity for Earth scientists to advance fundamental research as well. With the advent of non-traditional stable isotopes and SIMS technologies, we have broken new ground in near-equilibrium reaction kinetics – an insight with profound implications for the study of geological processes, as most geochemical reactions operate near equilibrium over geological timescales.
This is a hybrid event, if you are unable to join us in person please join via zoom.
Meeting ID: 997 2477 2096
Note: A password is required to join this meeting. Please call the Geology office (706-542-2652) and speak with a representative to obtain the code. Alternatively, a code request can be made to UGA Geology.