CoG3 Consortium: investigating the recovery of cobalt

The CoG3 team visiting Elk Lake historical silver mine in Ontario, Canada. This site is being studied by our collaborator Battery Mineral Resources for its cobalt potential.

Experiments with geo-active fungi (Aspergillus niger) to investigate Co bioleaching and biomineralisation. A: agar plate with fungi culture in contact with fragments of Mn nodule, B: fungal colonization of Mn nodule, C-D: secondary minerals formed after fungal interaction with Mn nodule

Members of the CoG3 consortium visiting the Piaui laterite deposit in north-eastern Brazil

Erythrite (cobalt arsenate) in a silicified host rock from Bou Azzer, Morocco

Specimen of the mineral cobaltite – a cobalt iron arsenic sulphide

The Bou Azzer Co-Ni mining complex in Morocco is the only mine in the world to produce cobalt as its primary product

Deep-sea floor Manganese nodules. Cobalt can be enriched in such nodules by a factor of more than 100, compared to sea water, resulting in cobalt concentrations 3-10 times higher than those in today’s known economically minable land deposits. The nodules shown here were collected during the HMS Challenger expedition 1872-1876.

Pit profile of the Çaldağ nickel laterite deposit in western Anatolia, Turkey. Çaldağ is the largest nickel reserve in Turkey, with an average grade of 1.14 per cent nickel and 0.07 per cent cobalt.

Professor Steve Roberts examines the drill core from the Rio Tinto exploration core shed in Kalalushi, Zambia

Copper sulphides (chalcopyrite and bornite) and a primary Co mineral Carrolite in samples from the Kalalushi mine, Zambia

A sample from Shevchenko laterite being analysed at microfocu XAS beamline at Diamond Light Source

Bioleaching experiments with COG3 samples conducted by COG3 partner Acidophile Research Team at Bangor University

Bio-stimulation of laterite samples – microbes are used to leach Co from the ore material

Project summary

Focus: Investigating solutions for the recovery of cobalt
Start date: 1 May 2015
Funding: Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) £2.5 million
Project leader: Prof Richard Herrington

CoG³ updates

A CoG³ project meeting was held in Manchester on the 17 October 2017
From 20-26 September 2017 the NHM team travelled to eastern Ontario, Canada to sample cobalt mineral occurrences within the Ontario Cobalt Belt
CoG³ ran the SoS Minerals Resources Programme Summer School at the NHM from 3-6 July 2017
The Investigators Meeting for the programme followed on 6-7 July 2017

The Museum is working with six UK universities and Diamond Light Source on a multidisciplinary study investigating solutions for the extraction of cobalt from ore deposits in Europe.

Manchester University

Southampton University

We hope to increase the UK's exploration, mining and recovery of cobalt, a metal of great strategic and economic importance. In this project we wil look at the geology, geometallurgy and geomicrobiology of cobalt resources leading to new product streams (CoG³).

The project aims to:

identify new environmentally benign extraction and recovery processes for cobalt
understand how cobalt minerals and ores are formed
understand how cobalt behaves in the Earth's crust
promote a greater understanding of the distribution and behaviour of cobalt in natural systems

Rationale

Cobalt (Co) is classified as an E-tech element by the National Environmental Research Council (NERC) which means it is considered essential for a technologically advanced, low-carbon society. Cobalt is designated a critical element by the European Union's Raw Materials Initiative.

Around 55,000 tonnes of Co are produced globally each year. Less than 0.1 % of this is produced within Europe, yet European countries use around 30 % of globally produced cobalt.

Large untapped reserves of cobalt in Europe include:

black shale ores in Poland, which are mined for copper
cobalt-bearing nickel laterite ores in Greece, Macedonia and Kosovo

Recovery and extraction problems

One of the primary difficulties facing cobalt recovery from sulphide copper ores relates to its flotation when using conventional processes.

In an attempt to overcome these difficulties, processing companies are using increasingly complex chemical additives. The toxicity of these chemicals increases the potential environmental risk of the process, both in terms of volatilisation and leakage into the surroundings.

Lateritic and other oxidised cobalt-bearing ores, such as marine nodules, pose significant technical challenges in developing economic and environmentally benign approaches to cobalt recovery.

Recent advances in bioprocessing ores and mineral concentrates have highlighted potential new techniques.