Tackling the global energy crisis
- Wits University
Wits is part of a new $150 million partnership to support the global energy transition.
Wits University has entered into a $150 million collaboration with Imperial College London, the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, the University of California, Berkeley, the Australian National University, Canberra, to form the Rio Tinto Centre for Future Materials led by Imperial College London.
The Centre, launched on 2 December 2024, is a multidisciplinary initiative that will accelerate the development of new sustainable techniques and technologies required to deliver the materials necessary for the just energy transition.
The Centre will connect some of the world’s best researchers with the capability and commitment of industry to help transform the way materials are sourced, processed, used and recycled to make them more environmentally, economically and socially sustainable.
Spearheaded by Wits’ Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Academic, Professor Ruksana Osman the Centre is a multidisciplinary, global effort to deliver a step-change in the approach to materials extraction, and materials use and re-use, in a way that is more environmentally, economically and socially sustainable in support of the just energy transition. “This initiative seeks to empower diverse and interdisciplinary teams to deliver fundamental, innovative and transformative science, engineering and social science solutions along the mining and metals value chain with environment, society, and governance at its core,” explains Osman.
The global shift to renewable energy generation, use and storage will require significant growth in the production and supply of metals and minerals vital to this transition.
Professor Thokozani Majozi, the Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment at Wits University, who is a lead on the project, explains: “This new Centre represents a pivotal moment in collaborative research, drawing on Wits University's rich mining heritage dating back to 1922 and our longstanding expertise in materials science and social impact studies. By uniting five leading universities across four continents, we are pioneering an interdisciplinary approach that transcends traditional academic boundaries, leveraging our collective strengths to address complex global challenges in materials innovation and sustainable resource development."
Innovative partnerships between industry and academia are critical for the world to meet the deeply physical and complex challenge of the global energy transition. “The Rio Tinto Centre for Future Materials should become a global hub for investment and collaboration that will ultimately create the conditions for technological breakthroughs,” says Jakob Stausholm, the Chief Executive of Rio Tinto. “Innovation has been a fundamental part of Rio Tinto’s DNA since we were founded in London over 150 years ago. We are constantly trying to find better ways to provide the materials that the world needs, and this partnership with some of the leading research universities in the world, led by Imperial College London, will support this ambition.”
The first Grand Challenge for the new Centre will focus on the major bottleneck to electrification: “Delivering future material systems for energy transitions with integrity: Overcoming the copper challenge”. Copper is critical to electricity generation, storage and transmission, but the world needs more copper in the next ten years than has been mined in the whole last century and currently we do not have enough in circulation to meet this demand. We therefore need to both reduce our demand for copper and work out how to extract it from the ground in the most sustainable way possible.
Research will include investigating new ways to extract copper - such as from fluids in the Earth’s crust; using microorganisms to harvest metals from rocks that only contain small volumes of copper; and the optimisation of the waste from old mine workings – with a focus on ESG from the perspective of indigenous communities.