Skip to 0 minutes and 31 seconds Hello, my name is Frances Wall. I’m a professor at Camborne School of Mines at the University of Exeter. I carry out research on some of the Earth’s most rare and special rocks that contain metals that are now facilitating technological advances in areas such as consumer electronics and the decarbonization of transport. In this course, we’re going to look at these previously little known and even rather obscure elements that have become so essential. We will call them technology metals, and we use them every day without thinking about where they really come from. But they’re the enablers of our digital technologies, renewable energy generation, and low carbon transportation.
Skip to 1 minute and 16 seconds Over the next four weeks, we’re going to be investigating how these technology metals form in the earth and become concentrated into minable deposits, where in the world deposits of these metals are located, how we as geologists find the deposits, and then how engineers and chemists extract the minerals and their metals from the host rocks, and of course, where these elements end up being used. We will consider the environmental impact of obtaining these essential raw materials and explore the possibilities of recycling and the circular value chain.
Skip to 1 minute and 54 seconds The aim of this course is to show the growing importance of these raw materials in our modern world and outline their pivotal role in our global communication networks and in our technologies that help facilitate decarbonization.
Skip to 2 minutes and 37 seconds We look forward to taking you on this journey through the life cycle of technology metals that permeate our modern world.
