Research and analysis

Engineering biology for critical minerals

Published 1 July 2026

Rapid projects support government departments to understand the scientific evidence underpinning a policy issue or area by convening academic, industry and government experts at a single roundtable. These summary meeting notes seek to provide accessible science advice for policymakers. They represent the combined views of roundtable participants at the time of the discussion and are not statements of government policy.

Are there biology-based approaches to accessing and processing critical minerals that could plausibly be integrated into existing industrial methods – on a commercially viable basis – within the next 5 to 10 years?

Meeting notes from roundtable chaired by Professor Tim Dafforn (Chief Scientific Adviser to the Ministry of Defence), facilitated by Government Office for Science.

11 March 2026

Key points

• Biology-based approaches demonstrate clear potential for accessing and processing a range of critical minerals, with some approaches already established at industrial scale.

• Successfully translating scientific research into industrial application is a challenge. Techno-economic assessments and pilot studies are needed to prove economic viability and scale-up potential of biology-based approaches. This would benefit from UK cross-council funding and establishment of a central coordinating institution.

• Using biology-based approaches to recover critical minerals from secondary resources is an opportunity to improve the UK’s supply chain resilience and support a circular economy.

Note on critical minerals definition: The 2024 UK critical minerals list (BGS and DBT, 2024) is not exhaustive. There are other materials, such as palladium, that could be considered critical due to supply chain risks

Effectiveness of current approaches and scalability

How effective are current biology-based approaches at accessing and processing critical minerals of strategic importance to the UK and how scalable are they?

Effectiveness of current approaches

1. Biology-based approaches to accessing and processing critical minerals are relatively limited but rapidly improving. Approaches are more effective for some critical minerals (e.g. copper, nickel, zinc, platinum-group metals, rare earth elements) than for others (e.g. lithium, graphite, helium).

2. Bioleaching is a biology-based approach for accessing critical minerals, using either:

a. microbes (e.g. Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans) that oxidise sulphides to break down ores and release target critical minerals, or

b. organic chelating agents – compounds that can be derived from microbes (e.g. Gluconobacter oxydans) which bind to metals and facilitate their extraction with varying degrees of selectivity.

3. Biology-based approaches for processing include using enzymes to recover critical minerals (e.g. platinum-group metals, uranium, tellurium) by a process called redox precipitation and using bacteria to produce critical mineral nanoparticles (e.g. palladium, platinum).

4. Biology-based approaches do not always involve organisms; biological molecules, such as proteins, can be used for critical mineral recovery because they bind to metals (Mattocks et al., 2023).

5. Fundamental scientific understanding of biology-based approaches varies according to the target critical mineral. For example, there is well-developed research on biomining for rare earth elements but less research on biomining for indium, niobium, hafnium, rhodium and antimony.

6. Many biology-based approaches (e.g. bacteria for lithium-ion battery recycling, lanmodulin for lanthanide extraction) have demonstrated improved selectivity for isolating target critical minerals compared to conventional chemical methods. Selectivity can be optimised through engineering biology techniques such as genetic editing of bacteria.

7. The effectiveness of biology-based approaches depends on the feedstock (material being processed).

a. Some feedstocks need to be broken down using an energy-intensive process (e.g. milling or smelting) before a biology-based approach can be used.

b. In some cases, critical minerals such as cobalt, nickel or lead, will be recovered as by-products or co-products of a process to extract other critical minerals, such as copper or zinc (the primary products). In such instances, each critical mineral is likely to respond differently to specific biology-based approaches.

Scalability

8. Some biology-based approaches have been established at scale:

a. Bioleaching is used to extract copper (Johnson et al., 2013) and gold at industrial scale.

b. Under laboratory conditions, some biology-based approaches have been shown to perform more effectively at scale, such as bio-recovery of manganese (Echavarri-Bravo et al., 2022) and bioleaching of nickel, cobalt and manganese from silicates (Lee et al., 2025).

10. Research into scaling-up biology-based approaches would benefit from greater coordination of research funding. For example, the UK’s RECREATE programme provides funding across all technologies of mineral processing which breaks down siloes between biology-based and chemical approaches.

a. Hybrid approaches – combining chemical and biology-based techniques – might be most efficient for critical mineral extraction and processing.

Opportunities and challenges of integrating approaches

What are the anticipated opportunities and challenges of integrating biology-based critical mineral processing approaches into existing industrial supply chains?

11. One of the biggest potential opportunities is developing biology-based approaches with improved selectivity for processing low-grade ores. This could provide efficiency advantages over existing industrial methods, particularly if genetic engineering tools such as CRISPR are used to enhance selectivity and expand the range of biological organisms that can be exploited.

12. Biology-based approaches also have the potential to operate at lower temperatures than existing mineral processing techniques, such as smelting. This could help to reduce energy use and environmental impacts (Roberto and Schippers, 2022).

13. Equipment for using biology-based approaches at scale does not need to be highly specialised or regulated, unlike for pharmaceutical and brewing processes, though precautions would be needed to mitigate risk of engineered microbes being released into the environment.

14. There are likely to be numerous biological mechanisms in nature for critical mineral recovery that currently remain undiscovered. In recent years, research has identified palladium nanoparticles synthesised by bacteria that have increased catalytic activity compared to those produced in industry (Era et al., 2022; Era et al., 2021). Increasing the join-up between fundamental science research and the biotech industry may unlock new opportunities.

15. Successfully translating laboratory science to real-world conditions remains a challenge that could be better addressed by improving coordination of the UK’s leading experts working across disciplines (cf Ryan et al., 2025).

16. Convincing industry to adopt biology-based approaches is challenging given the costs of scaling up combined with the potentially minimal profits associated with critical mineral recovery. Recovering nanoparticles from waste streams could offset costs.

17. It is important to communicate to potential industry partners the added value that biology-based approaches can provide. Techno-economic assessments should be conducted at an early stage to demonstrate the economic viability of scaling up biology-based approaches and to support funding for pilot studies.

18. Other important mechanisms for increasing industry uptake include conducting more robust field demonstrations of the science, focusing research on the feedstocks most readily available in the UK and optimising the efficiency of biology-based processes using process control, to increase industry confidence.

19. While regulation could play a role in incentivising industry to adopt more environmentally friendly biology-based approaches to critical mineral recovery, it could be limited by a lack of global coordination. Financial incentives could be a more effective strategy for encouraging industry adoption in the UK.

20. Regulatory challenges and public concerns could be a potential barrier to the use of genetically modified organisms for critical mineral processing.

Critical mineral supply chain

To what extent could biology-based approaches increase the resilience of the UK’s

critical mineral supply chain?

21. Current biology-based approaches would need to be optimised to strengthen the UK’s critical mineral supply chain.

22. Biology-based approaches to critical mineral access cannot replace mining but can support more sustainable mining and more circular and resilient supply chains by recovering critical minerals from secondary resources (mine wastes, industrial residues, used lithium-ion batteries). This is a potential area that the UK could lead over the next 5-10 years.

a. Improving domestic recycling and processing capability would reduce reliance on imported raw materials and overseas processing.

23. International collaboration is important for a resilient global critical mineral supply network, but supply disruptions can incentivise domestic research and development.

a. For example, restrictions on overseas rare earth supply and processing have highlighted supply chain vulnerabilities and created incentives to develop new technologies.

Attendees

Participants

• Professor Tim Dafforn (CSA Ministry of Defence, Chair)

• Buz Barstow (Cornell University)

• Joseph Cotruvo, Jr. (Pennsylvania State University)

• Mehrnoosh Heydari (University of Cambridge)

• Louise Horsfall (University of Edinburgh)

• Becca Kirk (Critical Mineral Association)

• Jonathan Lloyd (University of Manchester)

• Cecilia Martinez-Gomez (University of California, Berkeley)

• Alexa Schmitz (REEgen)

• Emma Schofield (Johnson Matthey)

• Allan Walton (University of Birmingham)

• Dawn Wellman (Rio Tinto)

Observers

Officials from GO-Science, DSIT and New Zealand’s Ministry of Health

References

British Geological Society and Department for Business & Trade (2024). UK 2024 criticality assessment.

Echavarri-Bravo, V., Amari, H., Hartley, J., Maddalena, G., Kirk, C., Tuijtel, M.W., Browning, N.D. and Horsfall, L.E. (2022). Selective bacterial separation of critical metals: towards a sustainable method for recycling lithium ion batteries.

Era, Y., Dennis, J.A., Horsfall, L.E. and Wallace, S. (2022). Palladium Nanoparticles from Desulfovibrio alaskensis G20 Catalyze Biocompatible Sonogashira and Biohydrogenation Cascades.

Era, Y., Dennis, J.A., Wallace, S. and Horsfall, L.E. (2021). Micellar catalysis of the Suzuki Miyaura reaction using biogenic Pd nanoparticles from Desulfovibrio alaskensis.

Johnson, D., Grail, B. and Hallberg, K. (2013). A New Direction for Biomining: Extraction of Metals by Reductive Dissolution of Oxidized Ores.

Lee, J.J., Plante, L., Pian, B., Marecos, S., Medin, S.A., Klug, J.D., Reid, M.C., Gadikota, G., Gazel, E. and Barstow, B. (2025). Bio-accelerated weathering of ultramafic minerals with Gluconobacter oxydans.

Mattocks, J.A., Jung, J.J., Lin, C.-Y., Dong, Z., Yennawar, N.H., Featherston, E.R., Kang-Yun, C.S., Hamilton, T.A., Park, D.M., Boal, A.K. and Cotruvo, J.A. (2023). Enhanced rare-earth separation with a metal-sensitive lanmodulin dimer.

Roberto, F.F. and Schippers, A. (2022). Progress in bioleaching: part B, applications of microbial processes by the minerals industries.

Ryan, L., Djajadikerta, A., Phillips, J., Macon-Cooney, B. and Mokander, J. (2025). A New National Purpose: Reimagining UK Science and Technology Through Lovelace Disruptive Invention Laboratories.