{"id":235230,"date":"2026-04-15T02:14:43","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T07:14:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/coppers-gatekeeper-could-unlock-cleaner-energy-future"},"modified":"2026-04-15T02:14:43","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T07:14:43","slug":"coppers-gatekeeper-could-unlock-cleaner-energy-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/coppers-gatekeeper-could-unlock-cleaner-energy-future","title":{"rendered":"Copper\u2019s \u2018gatekeeper\u2019 could unlock cleaner energy future"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/coppers-gatekeeper-could-unlock-cleaner-energy-future.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>A common mineral hiding in plain sight could hold the key to making copper production cleaner, faster and more efficient, just as global demand for the metal surges to power the energy transition. In an article published in <i>Nature Geoscience<\/i>, researchers from Monash University\u2019s School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment describe why chalcopyrite, the source of around 70% of the world\u2019s copper, has remained so difficult to process, and how its hidden chemistry could be harnessed to unlock more sustainable extraction.<\/p>\n<p>Despite being known for more than 300 years, chalcopyrite continues to frustrate scientists and industry alike, resisting low-temperature leaching and slowing efforts to extract copper from lower-grade ores. This inefficiency is a major bottleneck at a time when copper is critical for renewable energy systems, electric vehicles and modern infrastructure.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cChalcopyrite is the world\u2019s primary copper mineral, but it behaves in surprisingly complex ways that have limited how efficiently we can extract copper from it,\u201d said study lead Professor Jo\u00ebl Brugger from the School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A common mineral hiding in plain sight could hold the key to making copper production cleaner, faster and more efficient, just as global demand for the metal surges to power the energy transition. In an article published in Nature Geoscience, researchers from Monash University\u2019s School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment describe why chalcopyrite, the source [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,1497,17,1491],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-235230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chemistry","category-energy","category-sustainability","category-transportation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235230\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}