DOE selects S&T to build mining technology proving ground
Missouri University of Science and Technology is included in a new $73 million grant to create testing grounds for innovative mining technologies. The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Critical Minerals and Energy Innovation selected Missouri S&T as one of four projects that will work towards a “Mine of the Future.”
The university’s program, titled “Multi-Functioning Mining Technology Proving Ground for Energy Efficiency and Productivity,” was funded for $16.3 million and will create a proving ground that combines facilities for underground technology testing and advanced energy comminution assessment.
As part of the program, Missouri S&T will design, build and equip this proving ground to support innovation, real-world validation, and workforce development for next generation mining technologies.
“S&T is the perfect fit for this research, given our existing Experimental Mine and numerous faculty experts in mining and critical minerals research,” says Dr. Kwame Awuah-Offei, the Union Pacific/Rocky Mountain Energy Professor of mining engineering at S&T. “Work like this requires field sites to allow for testing in the real world, not theoretical work, and that will only further our expertise in the research and development of mining technology.”
This award complements the work under the Department of Commerce’s recent award to the Critical Minerals and Materials for Advanced Energy Tech Hub, led by S&T, to purchase land and build a test bed facility for evaluating critical minerals processing and extraction techniques at the pilot scale. The DOE funding provides the capability to test for energy savings during comminution, the process of reducing rocks into smaller sizes for processing, to improve the energy efficiency of critical minerals processing.
“Our roots are in mining and materials science since our founding days in 1870,” says Dr. David Borrok, vice provost and dean of the College of Engineering at Computing at S&T. “It is great to see that, after 155 years, Missouri S&T is still a leader in the field and recognized nationally for its strengths.”
The university’s critical minerals legacy of 155 years will also serve as the foundation for S&T’s new tech hub. The federally designated tech hub was recently awarded $38 million to improve domestic critical minerals supply chains. This funding source will support construction of an 18,000-square-foot critical mineral processing and recycling test bed at S&T designed to accelerate the commercialization of critical minerals technologies, along with fostering growth in the mining and explosives engineering degree programs at S&T.
To learn more about S&T’s work related to critical minerals, visit criticalminerals.mst.edu.
About Missouri S&T
Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T) is a STEM-focused research university of over 7,000 students located in Rolla, Missouri. Part of the four-campus University of Missouri System, Missouri S&T offers over 100 degrees in 40 areas of study and is among the nation’s top public universities for salary impact, according to the Wall Street Journal. For more information about Missouri S&T, visit www.mst.edu.
