白蟻為礦工們指明了通往低碳未來的道路

白蟻為礦工們指明了通往低碳未來的道路

The quest to replace fossil fuels is hampered by shortages of some of the minerals used for batteries and dynamos. Scientists at Australia's CSIRO are seeking ways to make it easier to find minerals like cobalt and nickel, and are getting help from termites.

由于用于電池和發(fā)電機的一些礦物質(zhì)的短缺，替代化石燃料的努力受到了阻礙。澳大利亞CSIRO的科學(xué)家們正在尋找使鈷和鎳等礦物更容易找到的方法，并從白蟻那里得到了幫助。

Vast deserts in places like Western Australia are pocketed with termite mounds. Termites sometimes bring up mineral particles from extraordinary depths for such small creatures – hundreds of meters in some cases. In doing so they can give humans an indication of what lies beneath, allowing mineral explorers to focus their searches. Miners have been using this fact to search for gold for some time, but new research could extend this to metals sought for environmental technologies, rather than mostly desired for aesthetics.

像西澳大利亞這樣的大沙漠里布滿了白蟻丘。白蟻有時會從非常深的地方為這種小生物帶出礦物顆粒，有些情況下是幾百米。通過這樣做，它們可以給人類一個地下的指示，讓礦物探索者專注于他們的搜索。一段時間以來，礦業(yè)公司一直在利用這一事實來尋找黃金，但新的研究可能會將這一理論擴展到尋找環(huán)保技術(shù)所需的金屬，而非主要用于美學(xué)的金屬。

Stephen Luntz

The lithium-ion batteries used in everything from our phones to electric cars currently use cobalt in their cathodes. This creates a major roadblock to the expansion of pollution-free transport because half the world's cobalt is currently mined in the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo, accompanied by appalling human rights abuses and environmental damage. Electric car manufacturers have succeeded in replacing more and more of the cobalt they use with nickel, and hope at some point to do without it altogether. So far, however, increases in battery production are outstripping the reduced amount of cobalt per battery.

從手機到電動汽車，我們使用的鋰離子電池的陰極都使用鈷。這為無公害運輸?shù)臄U張設(shè)置了一個主要的障礙，因為目前世界上一半的鈷礦是在飽受戰(zhàn)爭蹂躪的剛果民主共和國開采的，同時還伴隨著令人震驚的踐踏人權(quán)和環(huán)境破壞。電動汽車制造商已經(jīng)成功地用鎳替代了越來越多的鈷，并希望在某個時候完全不使用鎳。然而，到目前為止，電池產(chǎn)量的增長超過了每電池鈷的減少量。

In many locations “Manganese is mobilized in floodwaters,” Dr Sam Spinks told IFLScience, “Before precipitating out on surface features such as soil and rocks.” It bonds particularly well to termite mounds, forming a layer of manganese oxide, which Spinks calls super-absorbent of many other metals, including zinc, cobalt, and nickel.

薩姆·斯賓克斯博士告訴IFLScience，在許多地方，“錳在洪水中被動員起來，然后沉淀到土壤和巖石等地表特征上。”它與白蟻丘的結(jié)合特別好，形成一層氧化錳，這種金屬被稱為許多其他金屬的高吸水性材料，包括鋅、鈷和鎳。

Manganese oxide, often laced with zinc and other base metals, forms a blue metallic sheen against Australia's red earth. CSIRO

Unfortunately, this can create “false anomalies” where the manganese oxide soaks up so much of a particular metal explorers think they have hit the jackpot, only to find little underground. In Chemical Geology Spinks describes a more sophisticated approach.

不幸的是，這可能會造成“假異常”，即錳氧化物吸收了大量的特定金屬，以至于勘探人員以為他們中了頭彩，結(jié)果卻在地下發(fā)現(xiàn)了少量。在化學(xué)地質(zhì)學(xué)中，Spinks描述了一種更復(fù)雜的方法。

Zinc is much more abundant than other “base metals” in the Earth's crust, and is usually found along with them. Zinc is fairly cheap and seldom worth mining on its own, but can guide us to more valuable metals.

鋅比地殼中的其他“賤金屬”要豐富得多，通常與它們一起被發(fā)現(xiàn)。鋅相當(dāng)便宜，很少有值得單獨開采的價值，但可以引導(dǎo)我們找到更有價值的金屬。

"Zinc from hydrothermal ore deposits can be uniquely isotopically light,” Spinks told IFLScience. Consequently, finding zinc with an unusual ratio of light isotopes, particularly in basaltic rocks, can be a sign of an ancient hydrothermal vent, around which nickel and cobalt are also likely to have been deposited. Spinks stressed the situation is more complex than this, because the manganese oxide on the termite mounds preferentially captures heavier zinc.

“熱液礦床中的鋅具有獨特的同位素性質(zhì)，”斯賓克斯告訴IFLScience。因此，在玄武巖中發(fā)現(xiàn)輕同位素比例不同尋常的鋅可能是一個古代熱液噴口的跡象，鎳和鈷也可能沉積在熱液噴口周圍。斯賓克斯強調(diào)，情況要比這復(fù)雜得多，因為白蟻丘上的氧化錳優(yōu)先捕獲較重的鋅。

Nevertheless, "This new research shows we can now measure zinc variations, or isotopes, so accurately that we can identify what metal deposit lies deep underground," he said.

然而，“這項新的研究表明，我們現(xiàn)在可以如此精確地測量鋅或同位素的變化，我們可以確定什么金屬礦床深埋地下，”他說。