Chelation-Driven Chemistry Controls Dissolution Pathways for Facile Critical Mineral Recovery from Ultramafic Resources

The efficient recovery of critical minerals, such as nickel (Ni) and manganese (Mn) from the subsurface, is of vital importance, given their role in modern technologies ranging from energy storage to advanced alloys. This study presents a chelation-driven strategy to enhance critical mineral recovery from ultramafic rocks under ambient pressures and systematically evaluates key controls on extraction processes for the first time. Using EDTA and 1,3-PDTA as model chelating agents, we show that the stability of the metal–ligand chelate exerts first-order control of mineral–fluid interfacial reactivity and ring strain with metal and, consequently, net dissolution rates. To further highlight the ability for optimization, fluid exchange and variation of the fluid-to-rock ratio experiments were conducted, revealing tunable controls for engineering recovery. Under optimized conditions, Ni and Mn extraction efficiencies reach ∼ 95% and ∼ 80%, respectively. When extrapolated to the Twin Sisters Formation in the United States, these results correspond to recovering over 26 times the current global Ni production, and ∼ 1.5 times of the current global Mn production, even if only 5% of the formation were reacted. From both in situ and ex situ mining perspectives, this work demonstrates that chelation chemistry provides a tunable, transformative pathway for unlocking mineral extraction from unconventional resources while mitigating supply chain vulnerabilities.