RCSA, Sloan Foundation Plan New Scialog: Sustainable Minerals, Metals, and Materials
The transition to a low-carbon energy system will require the development of new materials that are less harmful to the environment. Synthetic materials made with petroleum-based feedstocks, as well as the polymers used in a variety of products, can create pollution and contribute to global warming if not managed responsibly. Critical minerals and metals are necessary components to accelerating the clean energy transition, but their environmental implications and overall life-cycle impacts need to be better understood.
In 2024, Research Corporation for Science Advancement and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation will launch an initiative to spark advances in the mining, design, manufacture, and disposal of materials that will be needed to achieve a more sustainable and low-carbon energy system. The first meeting of Scialog: Sustainable Minerals, Metals, and Materials will be held Sept. 4 – 7, 2024, in Tucson, Arizona.
“More attention needs to be paid to the long-term environmental implications of these materials and how they are used, re-used, and disposed of,” said RCSA Senior Program Director Andrew Feig, who leads the initiative. “Synthetic polymers, coatings, plastics, bio-inspired materials, critical minerals and metals, rare earth elements, and other related materials are vital as we try to reduce pollution and decarbonize the energy system.”
This three-year Scialog series will facilitate connections between approximately 50 early career chemists, materials scientists, geologists, ecologists, engineers, and energy system modelers, with the goal of catalyzing cross-disciplinary projects to investigate how to obtain, design, manufacture, and recycle substances so that their use and production at scale is more environmentally friendly.
Scialog, short for “science + dialog,” was created by RCSA in 2010 to bring together scientists from a variety of disciplines to focus their collective thinking on issues of global importance. By maximizing interactions between early career researchers with different experience and approaches, and who might not normally meet or work together, the process aims to spark creative and novel ideas for transformative research. At each conference, participants led by a group of senior facilitators discuss challenges and bottlenecks, build community around visionary goals, and pitch proposals for seed funding to undertake blue-sky pilot projects.
Scialog: Sustainable Minerals, Metals, and Materials will be RCSA and the Sloan Foundation’s third Scialog partnership. Advanced Energy Storage ran from 2017 to 2019, and Negative Emissions Science, which began in 2020, will hold its fourth and final meeting in November 2023.
“Innovative, interdisciplinary research on critical minerals, metals, and materials will be absolutely essential for accelerating the transition to clean energy systems,” said Evan Michelson, program director at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. “We know there is no better way to spark creative ideas for new scientific research than by building a community of next-generation scholars committed to identifying new directions for research. We look forward to seeding groundbreaking projects that can have transformative impact in the years ahead.”
Mining and industry’s environmental impacts played a foundational role in the creation of Research Corporation in 1912. The electrostatic precipitator, an invention of Berkeley chemist Frederick Gardner Cottrell, was the first industrial-scale antipollution device, used to trap pollutants coming from factory and smelter smokestacks. He turned all the proceeds from his discovery into philanthropy, creating Research Corporation with the goal of supporting early career scientists. Later in his career, Cottrell also served as director of the U.S. Bureau of Mines, and he is an inductee in the American Mining Hall of Fame.
More than 100 years after Cottrell’s invention, Fellows of this new Scialog will be challenged to consider a wide set of 21st century questions: What fundamental science is needed to develop bio-available and mass-producible feedstocks for synthetic materials, to develop new ways to use more earth-abundant elements in lieu of those that are rare, to obtain essential minerals and metals in more sustainable ways, and to plan for the recycling and reuse of materials from the very beginning of a product’s life cycle?
Progress on these questions and others will require bold ideas and interdisciplinary research. For full consideration as a Fellow for the first meeting, nominate yourself or an early career colleague by March 1, 2024.
