Understanding nanoscale cobalt biogeochemical cycling: A step towards minimizing the environmental cost of a critical battery metal in surfa

We aim to characterise the dispersion and speciation of cobalt (Co) in rocks and regolith samples around relatively undisturbed natural anomalies. Cobalt cycling is well-studied in only a few environments such as in marine (Mazzotta et al., 2021), and lateritic (Newsome et al., 2020) but poorly studied in surface environments. Currently, cobalt is obtained primarily from mine wastes and tailings piles (Dehaine et al., 2021) – meaning humanity is becoming increasingly reliant on mine waste processing as the demand for Co in batteries for electric cars and other applications surges. However, soluble Co is toxic in high concentrations to a range of biota. We aim to produce a model of the controls on Co mobility and toxicity in the regolith. This natural analogue study aims to improve our ability to predict the long-term fate of Co introduced into the environment because of expanding anthropogenic uses, along with managing the fate of resource-grade Co in mining waste piles.