Bio-accelerated weathering of ultramafic minerals with Gluconobacter oxydans.

ABSTRACT: Ultramafic rocks are an abundant source of cations for CO₂ mineralization (e.g., Mg) and elements for sustainability technologies (e.g., Ni, Cr, Mn, Co, Al). However, there is no industrially useful process for dissolving ultramafic materials to release cations for CO₂ sequestration or mining them for energy-critical elements. Weathering of ultramafic rocks by rainwater, release of metal cations, and subsequent CO₂ mineralization already naturally sequesters CO₂ from the atmosphere, but this natural process will take thousands to hundreds of thousands of years to remove excess anthropogenic CO₂, far too late to deal with global warming that will happen over the next century. Mechanical acceleration of weathering by grinding can acceler

SUBMITTER: Lee JJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12043915 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature