白蚁为矿工们指明了通往低碳未来的道路

白蚁为矿工们指明了通往低碳未来的道路

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.

由于用于电池和发电机的一些矿物质的短缺，替代化石燃料的努力受到了阻碍。澳大利亚CSIRO的科学家们正在寻找使钴和镍等矿物更容易找到的方法，并从白蚁那里得到了帮助。

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.

像西澳大利亚这样的大沙漠里布满了白蚁丘。白蚁有时会从非常深的地方为这种小生物带出矿物颗粒，有些情况下是几百米。通过这样做，它们可以给人类一个地下的指示，让矿物探索者专注于他们的搜索。一段时间以来，矿业公司一直在利用这一事实来寻找黄金，但新的研究可能会将这一理论扩展到寻找环保技术所需的金属，而非主要用于美学的金属。

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.

从手机到电动汽车，我们使用的锂离子电池的阴极都使用钴。这为无公害运输的扩张设置了一个主要的障碍，因为目前世界上一半的钴矿是在饱受战争蹂躏的刚果民主共和国开采的，同时还伴随着令人震惊的践踏人权和环境破坏。电动汽车制造商已经成功地用镍替代了越来越多的钴，并希望在某个时候完全不使用镍。然而，到目前为止，电池产量的增长超过了每电池钴的减少量。

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.

萨姆·斯宾克斯博士告诉IFLScience，在许多地方，“锰在洪水中被动员起来，然后沉淀到土壤和岩石等地表特征上。”它与白蚁丘的结合特别好，形成一层氧化锰，这种金属被称为许多其他金属的高吸水性材料，包括锌、钴和镍。

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，这可能会造成“假异常”，即锰氧化物吸收了大量的特定金属，以至于勘探人员以为他们中了头彩，结果却在地下发现了少量。在化学地质学中，Spinks描述了一种更复杂的方法。

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.

锌比地壳中的其他“贱金属”要丰富得多，通常与它们一起被发现。锌相当便宜，很少有值得单独开采的价值，但可以引导我们找到更有价值的金属。

"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.

“热液矿床中的锌具有独特的同位素性质，”斯宾克斯告诉IFLScience。因此，在玄武岩中发现轻同位素比例不同寻常的锌可能是一个古代热液喷口的迹象，镍和钴也可能沉积在热液喷口周围。斯宾克斯强调，情况要比这复杂得多，因为白蚁丘上的氧化锰优先捕获较重的锌。

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，“这项新的研究表明，我们现在可以如此精确地测量锌或同位素的变化，我们可以确定什么金属矿床深埋地下，”他说。