EEPS Colloquium: Yuanzhi Tang
From Mineral Interfaces to Resource Ecosystems: Opportunities and Challenges for Alternative Critical Mineral Resources
Abstract:
Growing demand for critical minerals is driving interest in resource streams that extend beyond conventional high-grade ores, including mine and industrial wastes, low-grade geological materials, secondary resources, and biologically accumulated metals. These alternative resources could diversify domestic supply while reducing waste and environmental impacts, but they also present a fundamental scientific challenge: valuable elements often occur at low concentrations, in heterogeneous matrices, and in chemical forms that are poorly understood and difficult to selectively recover.
This talk will examine how molecular- and mineral-scale understanding of element speciation, mineral-water interfacial reactions, and coupled dissolution, transformation, and separation processes can inform the development of critical mineral resources. Drawing from recent work on unconventional resources from our group, I will highlight how advanced spectroscopy and microscopy, geochemical experiments, and process-oriented studies can connect fundamental understanding of where critical elements reside and how they are bound with strategies for selective mobilization, separation, and recovery from complex, low-grade materials.
The discussion will then broaden from individual extraction processes to the resource ecosystems in which they operate. Realizing the potential of alternative resources requires integrating geochemistry and separation science with resource characterization, data and predictive tools, processing infrastructure, environmental performance, regional supply chains, and workforce development. This systems-to-ecosystems perspective provides a framework for identifying where fundamental interfacial science can have the greatest impact on translating unconventional resources into secure, sustainable, and economically viable mineral supply chains.
Bio:
Dr. Yuanzhi Tang is the Georgia Power Professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences and the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and the Executive Director of the Strategic Energy Institute and at Georgia Tech. She leads interdisciplinary efforts spanning elemental cycle, critical mineral resources, and advanced materials, with a focus on connecting fundamental research to real-world impact. She is also the founding director of the Center for Critical Mineral Solutions and has helped build regional and international partnerships around sustainable critical mineral supply chains.
Dr. Tang’s research focuses on molecular scale processes at mineral-water interfaces and their applications in resource recovery, nutrient cycling, energy materials, and circular resource systems. Her work integrates advanced spectroscopy, microscopy, and geochemical approaches to understand and control element behavior across natural and engineered systems.
She received her Ph.D. in geochemistry from Stony Brook University and joined Georgia Tech in 2013 following postdoctoral research at Harvard University. She is a Fellow of the American Chemical Society and currently serves as Co-Editor-in-Chief of Chemical Geology.
Host: Jeff Catalano
EEPS Colloquia are made possible by the William C. Ferguson Fund