Innovative low-impact supply of critical raw materials from the Copperbelt

The EU must secure and diversify access to critical raw materials, but supply must be responsibly sourced. Zambia’s Copperbelt hosts some of the world’s richest copper and cobalt deposits and underpins the country’s goal to triple copper output within a decade. Increased production will generate large volumes of sulfidic tailings as operations move into deeper sulfide ore bodies, adding to the two billion tonnes of legacy tailings already accumulated. These tailings, though low-grade, hold significant cobalt and copper but are unsuitable for conventional heap leaching, and traditional reprocessing is often uneconomic. They thus represent both an underutilised resource and an environmental risk.INSOKA tackles this challenge with an innovative, low-cost pond bioleaching system. Compared with conventional tank bioleaching, it sharply reduces capital and operating costs, making recovery viable across a wider range of grades. Bioleaching also produces benign residues, reducing long-term liabilities, and works on both legacy and new tailings. The system will be demonstrated in Zambia using Mopani mine tailings at TRL7. A detailed characterisation strategy will be implemented, with mapping and amenability testing to identify replication opportunities across the Copperbelt.Cost-effective upstream preprocessing will concentrate sulfide minerals, while downstream separation using new environmentally friendly SX reagents will yield refined cobalt and copper for EU markets. INSOKA directly supports EU strategic objectives on critical raw materials, advances Zambia’s industrial ambitions, and offers a scalable solution for both value recovery and environmental risk reduction from mining tailings.