Prioritizing Critical Minerals for Environmental Research
Author Information
Author(s): Sarah Jane O. White, Tyler J. Kane, Kate M. Campbell, Marie-Noële Croteau, Michael Iacchetta, Johanna M. Blake, Charles A. Cravotta III, Bethany K. Kunz, Charles N. Alpers, Jill A. Jenkins, Katherine Walton-Day
Primary Institution: U.S. Geological Survey
Hypothesis
How do governments, regulators, scientists, and industries identify research priorities to help ensure that critical elements are recovered, refined, used, reused, and disposed in a sustainable, environmentally responsible manner?
Conclusion
A multidisciplinary approach can help prioritize critical minerals for research, focusing on those with significant data gaps and potential environmental impacts.
Supporting Evidence
- Critical minerals are essential to national and global security and prosperity.
- Only limited information is available about environmental occurrence, distribution, mobility, and potential adverse effects on ecosystem and biota health for many critical minerals.
- The proposed approach could be applied to critical minerals lists from other countries or industries.
- Zinc is identified as a high priority in three topic areas: occurrence in common deposit types, high expected bioavailability, and high expected toxicity.
- Indium is identified as a high priority in eight categories, indicating significant data gaps.
Takeaway
This study suggests a way to figure out which important minerals we should study more because we don't know enough about them and they can harm the environment.
Methodology
The study proposes a multidisciplinary screening tool with multiple criteria to prioritize critical elements for study based on available information, environmental occurrence, geochemistry, bioavailability, and toxicity.
Potential Biases
Potential biases may arise from the reliance on available literature and metrics that may not capture the full complexity of environmental interactions.
Limitations
The study does not explicitly consider human toxicity in its prioritization framework.
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
Want to read the original?
Access the complete publication on the publisher's website