Sustainably Sourcing Critical Minerals through Superfund Mine Site Cleanup

The Environmental Monitoring and Technology Remediation Assessment Initiative (EMRTAI) is an EPA-funded initiative focused on driving technological innovation in characterizing and recovering critical minerals in waste materials at Superfund legacy hard rock mine and mineral processing sites.

Technology assessments, in coordination with technology vendors and developers, will be conducted using waste materials from legacy mine sites to 1) advance promising technologies to higher technology readiness levels (TRLs) and 2) demonstrate performance capabilities of advanced technologies under field conditions to progress towards commercialization.

Assessment approaches are designed to provide stakeholders across the mining and remediation industries with objective, high quality performance data to support technology selection decisions for the treatment and beneficial reuse of mining waste. Integral to this effort is assessing the types and capabilities of technologies and methodologies to characterize critical minerals in diverse media, including mining influenced water and solid mine waste.

The EMRTAI recognizes that communities where these technology assessments will take place have previously experienced impacts from the mining industry. The Initiative intends to be transparent in communications regarding the assessments and work with communities to foster dialogue about the beneficial reuse of waste materials.

The EMRTAI is operated as a public-private partnership through a cooperative agreement between the U.S. EPA and a private nonprofit testing and evaluation organization (Battelle Memorial Institute). As a third-party organization, Battelle is leading the EMRTAI, including the Technology Assessment and Community Outreach activities conducted under the Initiative. EPA’s role in the cooperative agreement is to provide technical and quality assurance support to promote the success of the Initiative.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) logo is an identifying trademark of the EPA. The EPA logo is used here with permission, for informational purposes only, to indicate that Battelle received financial support from the EPA under cooperative agreement number 8406810.

What’s new?

Technology Assessment Planning

The open period for our first Call for Applications closed on December 20, 2024. We are currently planning the first round of Technology Assessments to be conducted in late Spring 2025. Join our Quarterly Stakeholder Meetings for updates on the technology assessments underway!

Call for Applications:

We anticipate releasing the following Calls for Applications in March 2025:

  • Technologies for Characterization of Critical Minerals in Solid Mine Waste

  • Technologies to Recover Critical Minerals from Mining Influenced Water

  • *NEW* Technologies to Recover Critical Minerals from Solid Mining Waste Materials

TBD

Upcoming Events

Our next Stakeholder Group will be meeting on May 20, 2025