Growing populations and the shift to an electrified economy are rapidly increasing global demand for critical minerals, which is projected to rise 500% by 2050. As a result, critical mineral supply chains are vulnerable to disruptions if mineral production, processing and recycling are not increased.  

Copper plays an essential role in renewable energy systems and digital technologies and with nearly half of Canada’s copper mined in British Columbia, the province is central to securing domestic copper supply chains to facilitate the green economy transition. 

Sulfide deposits host about 70% of global copper reserves. However, current methods to process sulfide ores are costly, energy‑intensive, carbon‑intensive and leave a significant amount of metal unrecovered. New technologies are needed to process low‑grade or unconventional ores more efficiently and with lower environmental impacts. Bioleaching, a process that uses microbes to break down ores and release metals, offers a promising low‑cost and low‑GHG alternative, provided recovery rates can be improved. 

This one‑year project aims to advance bioleaching approaches for sulfide materials by developing specialized communities of microbes capable of more efficiently breaking down sulfide ores. Using existing genomics data, the team will identify and assemble candidate organisms, test how well they perform and confirm the genomic and transcriptomic pathways that drive bioleaching performance. 

By improving how copper is processed from sulfide ores, this work also supports the recovery of other critical metals from these same ore types. This advancement will strengthen Canada’s critical mineral supply chains for defense, clean energy and the digital economy.