Mining
Biocementation for Mining Waste Management
GEN028- Project Leaders: Susan Baldwin, Alison Morrison
- Institutions: University of British Columbia (UBC)
- Budget: $500568
- Program/Competition: GeneSolve
- Genome Centre(s): Genome British Columbia
- Fiscal Year: 2023
- Status: Active
British Columbia plans to expand its critical minerals mining sector. To safely achieve this goal, it is crucial to develop innovative and sustainable ways to manage mining waste.
One of the most pressing challenges in this sector is dealing with tailings, a mixture of finely ground rocks, saturated silt and residual toxic chemicals. Presently, the mining industry’s standard approach is to collect the tailings in a pile, however this involves spreading hundreds of millions of tonnes of dry tailings across thousands of hectares.
Over time, wind erosion can create fugitive dust, posing a significant health risk to mine personnel, local communities and wildlife. At active mine sites, fugitive tailings dust is controlled by frequent misting of water or chemical stabilizers. However, increased water usage and residual chemicals left in the soil can have a significant environmental impact.
Researchers from UBC, Teck Resources, Rio Tinto, BGC Engineering and Koonkie are on a mission to develop a nature-based solution to stabilize fugitive dust at tailings storage facilities. Using the Mining Microbiome Analytics Platform (MMAP), they will conduct a genomic survey on 1,400 mine tailings samples. Their goal is to identify microbes with the natural ability to aggregate calcium-rich dust into cement; a process also known as biocementation. They will perform genomic and biochemical analyses to determine the key microbial species, pathways and genes involved in biocementation.
The team will also create a cell surface display screening platform, to display known proteins involved with biocementation on engineered cell surfaces, enabling a more rapid gene validation method for the future. Additionally, they will conduct wind tunnel tests to assess the stabilization ability of each microbial candidate strain, laying the foundation for future field testing.
The development of a nature-based biocementation solution for fugitive dust management has the potential to address an important mining industry problem.
