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Biomining and Bioremediation

Could Sudbury’s mine waste feed the steel industry? – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – April 9, 2024)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Biomining company sees tonnes of iron waiting to be extracted from Sudbury tailings

A biomining company that’s rooting around Sudbury’s mine tailings insists there are multiple metal and commodity products waiting to be extracted. Toronto’s BacTech Environmental is filing a patent application for its unique and innovative bioleaching process that recovers valuable metals from mine waste while also cleaning up toxic industrial environments.

BacTech’s process has demonstrated it’s already capable of recovering nickel, copper and cobalt from mine tailings, but now there’s the potential to pull the iron out of the pile while also making a fertilizer product.

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Sudbury researcher predicts late 2024 construction for bio-mining innovation centre – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – January 31, 2024)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

MIRARCO Mining Innovation CEO confident on capital investment arriving for mine waste tech centre

A Canadian expert in the field of bio-mining hopes to break ground on a Centre for Mine Waste Technologies in Sudbury by the end of this year.

Nadia Mykytczuk, president of MIRARCO Mining Innovation, said she’s following an “aggressive timeline” in seeking to construct a $38-million innovation centre when she spoke before the provincial standing committee on finance and economic affairs in Sudbury, Jan.30, as part of the government’s 2024 pre-budget public hearings.

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Bio-mining company to begin testing Sudbury mine waste – by Staff (Elliot Lake Today – December 28, 2023)

https://www.elliotlaketoday.com/

BacTech Environmental to run six-month pilot plant of its bioleaching mineral extraction technology

Testing of an innovative ‘green’ mining technology to extract valuable metals out of mine waste will start in Sudbury in early 2024. BacTech Environmental has a proprietary and environmentally friendly bioleaching process that it wants to test on mine tailings to extract small amounts of cobalt and nickel while it simultaneously cleans up the environment.

The bioleaching process involves using native and naturally occurring and harmless bacteria that can be trained in the lab to target certain ores and contain other substances that are harmful to humans.

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The Future of Mining Might Be Smaller than You Think – by Caitlin Stall-Paquet (The Walrus Magazine – December 2023)

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As the world’s demand for metals continues to rise, some are using microorganisms to mine and “clean” waste

WHEN NADIA MYKYTCZUK first visited the mine sites near Copper Cliff, on the outskirts of Greater Sudbury, Ontario, in 2005, she saw rock piles stretching out in all directions—not so much dotting the landscape as forming their own. On first impression, says Mykytczuk, “you really can’t quite comprehend that everything you see around you is mine waste.”

Some of that rubble is what is known as tailings—the crushed rock or wet slurry left behind after a company has extracted raw materials from ore. But to Mykytczuk, then a PhD student, those drab rock heaps looked a lot shinier.

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Sudbury researchers land funding for green mining initiative – by Staff (Northern Ontario Business – August 15,2023)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

MIRARCO Mining Innovation receive $280,000 from industry innovation network

Sudbury’s MIRARCO Mining Innovation has received $280,000 in grant money from the Mining Innovation Commercialization Accelerator (MICA) Network.

The funding is earmarked to help develop a pilot plant in Sudbury that uses a biotechnology process to extract valuable metals out of waste piles at mine sites while simultaneously cleaning up the environment. MIRARCO’s industry partner, BacTech Environment Corp. announced the news on Aug. 14.

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Sudbury’s mine waste worth billions; new project to find ways of extracting valuable minerals – by Staff (Sudbury Star – March 8, 2023)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

Vale, province to pay for new industrial research chair program in biomining and bioremediation to be based in Sudbury

Mine waste in the Sudbury area may be worth billions and it’s Nadia Mykytczuk’s job to find ways using bacteria to extract the valuable nickel, copper and other critical minerals out of them.

Her job got a lot easier Wednesday when Vale Energy Transition Metals and the provincial government announced money to support a new industrial research chair program in biomining and bioremediation that she will lead in Sudbury. Vale Energy committed $875,000 over five years to the Mining Innovation, Rehabilitation, and Applied Research Corporation (MIRARCO) at Laurentian University.

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Clean and green mining in Sudbury takes a step forward – by Staff (Northern Ontario Business – March 7, 2023)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Vale and Queen’s Park offer up $1.6 million to tackle mining waste and advance bio-mining innovation

A new and environmentally benign form of Sudbury’s mining industry just took a great leap forward with a more than $1.6 million contribution from international nickel miner Vale and the Ontario government.

Mining Innovation, Rehabilitation, and Applied Research Corporation (MIRARCO) at Laurentian University and its research leader Dr. Nadia Mykytczuk are the recipients of this largess that will be earmarked for the organization’s bio-mining and remediation efforts in tackling mine waste.

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The role of biotechnology in mining and minerals – by Madiha Khan and Steve Gravel (Canadian Mining Journal – January 11, 2023)

https://www.canadianminingjournal.com/

As the global demand for metals continues to grow year over year, the need for intensive mining is showing no signs of slowing down. In fact, some reports project that production of battery metals is expected to increase by 500% by 2050. This unprecedented demand is also being met by a two-fold supply problem; the slow speed of new mining operations coming on-line and the general problem of world-wide low ore grades that has surfaced over the last few decades.

The global market needs to grapple with these problems and producers need to find ways to extract metals quickly and cheaply while still adhering to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) responsibilities which have become critical guiding principles of late. One burgeoning area of technology that is potentially valuable in solving some of these issues is biotechnology.

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The race to mine mining waste – by John Lorinc (Corporate Knights – January 9, 2023)

https://www.corporateknights.com/

Could metal-eating bacteria that break down mining waste be key to sustainable battery minerals?

For generations, the topography of Sudbury, Ontario, has been brutally defined by towering slag heaps and vast orange-hued tailings ponds – the physical legacy of almost 140 years of nickel mining and smelting by resource giants like Inco and Falconbridge.

By 1910, in fact, Sudbury’s mines were supplying 80% of the world’s nickel. But by the late 20th century, the industrial fallout – corrosive air pollution, acid rain and a legacy of seemingly intractable contamination – revealed the extraordinary environmental cost of those resource riches.

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NOBA 2022: Nadia Mykytczuk is the Innovation Award winner – by Casey Stranges (Northern Ontario Business- January 3, 2023)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

MIRARCO chief’s research into biowaste may be game-changer in race to secure EV battery infrastructure

According to researcher Nadia Mykytczuk, Sudbury is ready to play a leading part in the global story about electric vehicles (EV).

As auto manufacturers lock up supply chains, and countries position themselves as viable trading partners, the Nickel City has the resources and necessary tools to transition into a hub for EV technology.

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The Drift: Sudbury mining camp remains active with explorers – by Staff (Northern Ontario Business – December 14, 2022)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

New sources of nickel and platinum keep the drills turning this winter

Nickel and base metals continue to drive exploration in the Sudbury mining camp with a handful of junior miners preparing for winter drill programs.

Magna Mining, the redevelopers of a decommissioned INCO property near Whitefish, reported some high-grade nickel hits this week from its first drilling program at the former Crean Hill Mine. The Sudbury junior miner acquired the shuttered underground mine last month and launched a maiden 2,000-metre program this fall.

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Ottawa orders Chinese divestment in three Canadian critical minerals companies – by Niall McGee and Steven Chase (Globe and Mail – November 3, 2022)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Ottawa is ordering Chinese state-owned companies to immediately divest their interests in three Canadian critical minerals companies, after the federal government faced an avalanche of criticism earlier in the year for allowing too much investment from the Asian superpower into the domestic mining sector.

The government’s order marks the second time in a week it has taken a more aggressive stand against China, after allowing it to acquire a Canadian critical minerals company earlier this year amid little scrutiny.

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Opinion: Laurentian must turn its legacy into a new vision for the future – by Nadia Mykytczuk (Sudbury Star – August 30, 2022)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

Among other steps, LU should focus on being ‘Canada’s mining university’

As we get closer to the vote on Sept. 14 that will ultimately decide the fate of Laurentian University following a grueling, agonizing and, at times, nasty CCAA process, I find myself torn between our collective struggle to find closure, the empathy I feel for those whose lives were turned upside down, and mourning what we have lost in our Laurentian and Sudbury community.

As one of the terminated faculty, I have lived the pain of losing my job, my hard-earned academic career, and tenure. Even more difficult has been seeing many of my colleagues and their families leave our wonderful community.

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1911 Gold begins tailings reprocessing at True North complex in Manitoba – by Jackson Chen (Canadian Mining Journal – June 23, 2022)

https://www.canadianminingjournal.com/

1911 Gold (TSXV: AUMB; OTC: AUMBF) has begun tailings reprocessing operations at the True North complex at Bissett, Man., where it expects to process between 170,000 and 190,000 tonnes of historical tailings this year to recover approximately 3,500 to 4,000 oz. of gold.

Early in 2022, the company completed a sampling program to characterize the grade, thickness, grain-size and moisture content of the tailings in the targeted resource blocks to quantify the expected gold recovery.

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Toronto company looks to extract billions in value from Sudbury mine waste (CBC News Sudbury – June 7, 2022)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/

BacTec estimates there is $27 billion worth of nickel in Greater Sudbury’s mine waste

A Toronto-based environmental technology company is working on a pilot project in Sudbury to separate valuable minerals from mine waste with bacteria.

BacTech Environmental Corporation plans to have its pilot plant in Sudbury operational by July, and will use a process called bioleaching to extract minerals like nickel and cobalt from mine tailings. Tailings are the waste material that’s left over after minerals are extracted from a mine.

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