Research
Mobile Research

Critical Minerals

Critical resource challenges, biological solutions

Critical Minerals

Critical resource challenges, biological solutions

What's new in the critical minerals program?

Biomining Handbook Logo

We’re are excited to launch The Biomining Handbook, an open educational resource designed to help biologists and mining professionals create better projects together. Our goal is to provide a centralized, living knowledge source for new entrants to the field.

What are critical minerals?

Critical minerals are materials essential to modern infrastructure and clean energy that face supply risk. They underpin batteries, motors, solar and wind components, transmission, and strategic technologies. Ensuring reliable, responsible supply is both a climate and national-resilience priority.

 

The clean energy future runs on metals. Demand for copper, nickel, lithium, cobalt, rare earth minerals, and other critical minerals are rising fast, while materials available to the mining industry are getting more complex: lower grades, mixed mineralogy, higher impurities, and growing stockpiles of tailings and waste.

Why use biotech for critical minerals?

Biology’s adaptability makes it a powerful fit. With programmable specificity and the ability to operate under heterogeneous, real-world conditions, biotech can help process complex source materials more economically and with a smaller footprint. At Homeworld, we align researchers and industry to turn that potential into impact.

Resources for critical minerals

  • Biomining TEA model
Orecast: Open-Source TEA for Chalcopyrite Biomining
Our Orecast project produces open-source techno-economic analyses (TEAs) for biomining. These TEAs help translate laboratory successes into economic realities. With our first TEA - designed for chalcopyrite heap leaching, a historic application for biology in mining - biologists can learn the rungs of a TEA, adapt it to their own use or data, and predict if their technology has a realistic path to market. However, this tool isn’t only for biotech innovators - students, funders, mining professionals and more are also more than welcome to use this tool to start bridging the gap between biotechnology and mining.

The scale of cost and infrastructure in mining is difficult to grasp until you’ve worked at a mine. This is particularly challenging to internalize when coming out of academia as a biotechnologist or geobiologist. If we want the best and brightest of academic solutions for mining problems to make it into full-scale production, then academics need to speak the language of mining economics.
  • Critical Minerals Explorer
AI-powered Critical Minerals Explorer
Built on the 2025 U.S. Geological Survey’s critical-minerals list, mapping 63 minerals to their most pressing technical bottlenecks. While the introduction spotlights biotechnology opportunities, each metal’s structured report is technology-agnostic and ranked via a GDP-impact Summary Table.

Built via a transparent, rapid AI pipeline (USGS list → MSHA data collection → report generation → independent fact-checking), this is a working draft, please validate and leave anonymous, moderated comments directly in each Detailed Report. Follow the link below to read our methodology and dive into the editable explorer.
  • The Biomining Handbook
The Biomining Handbook
An open educational resource designed to help biologists and mining professionals create better projects together. In talking with biologists interested in mining, and mining folks interested in biology, we received a common request: a centralized knowledge source for new entrants to the field. Our Biomining Handbook combines parallel learning modules, flowsheets identifying where biology can be leveraged in mining operations, a complex materials guide, a glossary of biomining-relevant terms, design frameworks and assessment checklists and frontier research challenges.

Whether you are new to the field or an experienced practitioner helping to build it, we hope you’ll find something useful in the Biomining Handbook.

Homeworld's approach in critical minerals

Funding
We offer small grants to fund climate biotech research through our Garden Grants program. We anticipate launching a Garden Grants program around critical minerals in early 2026. Please join our email list to receive an announcement when this program launches!
Problem statements
We identify the biggest bottlenecks in critical minerals research and work to address those constraints. To read about some of the currently-identified bottlenecks in critical minerals, view our Problem Statement Repository with the tag “Critical Minerals.” To work with Homeworld to contribute a problem statement, email criticalminerals@homeworld.bio.
Workshops
We organize gatherings to identify and solve problems and bottlenecks in the field. Additionally, we hold educational workshops to develop broader understanding and knowledge transfer around difficulties in this field.

How can I get involved?

Are you a researcher, funder, potential industry partner, or simply just interested to learn more about Homeworld’s critical minerals program? Contact us at criticalminerals@homeworld.bio and become a part of our journey or let us help you on yours!