{"title":"Mine-on-a-chip: megascale opportunities for microfluidics in critical materials and minerals recovery","authors":"Wen Song","doi":"10.1039/D5LC00387C","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p >The rising supply gap for metal resources essential to energy, defense, and consumer technologies—the critical minerals and materials—poses one of the most pressing bottlenecks toward energy and national security. A suite of challenges ranging from resource definition to extraction and refining, however, undergird the economic feasibility and cradle-to-grave sustainability of these technologies. Myriad opportunities exist to leverage the unique advantages of microfluidics – low sample and reagent consumption, parallel processing, and rapid and low-cost testing – to understand and improve existing approaches for materials characterization, extraction, chemical analyses, reagent screening, separation. This perspective identifies key gaps and opportunities in securing the supply of minerals and materials critical to energy sustainability and aims to galvanize the lab on a chip (LoC) community in this crucial research.</p>","PeriodicalId":85,"journal":{"name":"Lab on a Chip","volume":" 18","pages":" 4461-4472"},"PeriodicalIF":5.4000,"publicationDate":"2025-08-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlepdf/2025/lc/d5lc00387c?page=search","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Lab on a Chip","FirstCategoryId":"5","ListUrlMain":"https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2025/lc/d5lc00387c","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"BIOCHEMICAL RESEARCH METHODS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The rising supply gap for metal resources essential to energy, defense, and consumer technologies—the critical minerals and materials—poses one of the most pressing bottlenecks toward energy and national security. A suite of challenges ranging from resource definition to extraction and refining, however, undergird the economic feasibility and cradle-to-grave sustainability of these technologies. Myriad opportunities exist to leverage the unique advantages of microfluidics – low sample and reagent consumption, parallel processing, and rapid and low-cost testing – to understand and improve existing approaches for materials characterization, extraction, chemical analyses, reagent screening, separation. This perspective identifies key gaps and opportunities in securing the supply of minerals and materials critical to energy sustainability and aims to galvanize the lab on a chip (LoC) community in this crucial research.
期刊介绍:
Lab on a Chip is the premiere journal that publishes cutting-edge research in the field of miniaturization. By their very nature, microfluidic/nanofluidic/miniaturized systems are at the intersection of disciplines, spanning fundamental research to high-end application, which is reflected by the broad readership of the journal. Lab on a Chip publishes two types of papers on original research: full-length research papers and communications. Papers should demonstrate innovations, which can come from technical advancements or applications addressing pressing needs in globally important areas. The journal also publishes Comments, Reviews, and Perspectives.