PhD Studentship: Selective metal extraction from geological materials using electrokinetic leaching. TARGET NERC Centre for Doctoral Training PhD studentship 2025/26 Entry

TARGET is the Training and Research Group for Energy Transition Mineral Resources, a UKRI NERC sponsored Centre for Doctoral Training.

TARGET will support interdisciplinary researchers through a comprehensive training programme to develop your skills in various aspects of meeting mineral resources challenge. Your training will prepare you for a career at the forefront of mineral resources and the energy transition, whether your future is in academia, industry, or policy.

Project Information

Project Highlights:

• ‘keyhole surgery’ mining 
• Metal mining but with lower environmental impact 
• Unlocking stranded metal resources to support the energy transition 

Overview: 

Currently most metals are extracted from ores that are blasted, excavated, pulverised and then processed on the surface. This requires a large energy input (at a time when we need to be decarbonising), generates large volumes of waste and is damaging to the environment. This PhD project will seek to deliver a new approach which would comprise the use of an electric field to facilitate the movement of a solvent into an ore body for the selective in situ extraction of a target metal. This new approach to mining, if successful, would enable metals to be extracted from subsurface ores (and waste repositories) whilst imparting minimal damage to the surface environment and avoiding the generation of environmentally hazardous mine tailings.

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