BIG and The Metals Company have partnered on a venture to develop sustainable undersea mining mechanisms and processing plants for battery metals Image: Courtesy of Bjarke Ingels Group
DeepGreen by BIG is a circular system to extract battery metals from seafloor rocks
In collaboration with The Metals Company, the Danish firm unveils designs for robotic collectors, transport vessels and processing plants for production of battery metals.
In a groundbreaking collaboration with The Metals Company, Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) has revealed its designs for ‘DeepGreen’ – a set of onshore and offshore production systems and facilities to manufacture battery metals from rocks on the seafloor. These systems are expected to enable a cyclical supply chain for vital battery metals while minimising environmental impact as the world strives for carbon neutrality. In a bid to reduce dependency on fossil fuels and fully electrify global economies, the world will need to manufacture innumerable batteries to cater to the rising demands. Mining from land-based sources will only exacerbate the damage to the natural ecosystem. Hence, recycling metals and responsibly mining from alternative sources may present a more sustainable path on which to move forward.
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02mins watch BIG and The Metals Company envision sustainable systems for deep-sea mining Video: Courtesy of Bjarke Ingels Group
“The global energy system needs to undergo its most profound change in centuries to realise a world run exclusively on renewable sources," says Bjarke Ingels, founder and Creative Director at BIG. "If the ongoing research and studies conclude that harvesting minerals from the seabed can be done in an environmentally and socially responsible way, we will not only be able to accelerate the green transition, but give form to an entirely new industry that will create a sustainable circular metals economy for future generations,” he adds.
BIG has developed designs for robotic collectors, processing vessels, and hydrodynamic shuttle carriers (pictured here) Image: Courtesy of Bjarke Ingels Group
The Metals Company is a Canadian organisation that is presently devoted to developing low-impact batteries from polymetallic nodules - fist-sized rocks containing battery-grade nickel, cobalt, copper, and manganese. These lie unattached to the ocean floor and are formed over millions of years through the absorption of minerals from seawater. Providing an abundant supply of raw materials to make batteries, the nodules contain very few toxic heavy elements in their composition and can be processed more efficiently with minimal carbon emissions.
The collaboration reimagined metal production for the 21st century by conceptualising innovative systems for industrial machinery and processes involved in manufacturing battery metals from polymetallic ocean floor nodules. “The world is characterised by a mindset that divides it into front of house and back of house. The front of the house is carefully designed in the form of beautiful facades and lush parks, leaving the back of the house as purely utilitarian and logistical leftovers in the form of parking lots and warehouses. With The Metals Company, we are designing a human-made ecosystem channeling the flow of resources with the care and attention conventionally reserved for the front of house. A next-generation materials industry," explains Ingels.
Specialised metallurgical plants set within coastal regenerative landscapes are also part of the proposal Image: Courtesy of Bjarke Ingels Group
As part of an integrated set of assets, BIG presented designs for robotic collectors, processing vessels, and zero-waste metallurgical plants. According to the firm, this system will cover the entire process of extracting nodules from the seafloor, transporting them to a custom-made production vessel, and transferring the material to a hydrodynamic shuttle carrier, which will then deposit the materials at specialised circular metallurgical plants settled within regenerative coastal landscapes. They expect that these infrastructural interventions will transform urban ports into battery material innovation centres and community hubs.
The proposal presents social campuses to transform surrounding urban centres into innovation and community hubs Image: Courtesy of Bjarke Ingels Group
“Deep-water ports around the world are often degraded ecosystems unwelcoming to local communities. We asked BIG to reimagine what a metals-processing facility could be, to have it integrate with—even remediate—the urban coastal environment,” says Gerard Barron, Chairman and CEO of The Metals Company. “The result,” he adds, “is a breathtaking innovation complex that will transform an industrial port into a community-based hub for the electric vehicle revolution".
Hydrometallurgical refining and pyrometallurgical processing functions have been combined under one roof within their programs Image: Courtesy of Bjarke Ingels Group
These processing plants will likely crop up at degraded brownfield sites in coastal zones. While designing these plants, the Copenhagen-based architects seized on the chance to combine pyrometallurgical processing and hydrometallurgical refining facilities beneath a single roof. Envisioned as innovative social campuses, it is said that the developments will turn traditional metallurgical processing on its head. At the end of their life cycles, the plants’ functions will be restructured to recycle battery cathodes.
The system will harvest polymetallic nodules from the ocean floor with the aid of special robotic collectors Image: Courtesy of Bjarke Ingels Group
After collection, the nodules will be lifted through a riser pipe to the production vessel Image: Courtesy of Bjarke Ingels Group
Daniel Sundlin, partner at BIG and partner-in-charge of the joint venture with The Metals Company, explains, “To collect the nodules, we have designed a light-touch, robotic collector vehicle that aims a jet of seawater across the tops of the rocks to gently pry them from the sediment".
"Part of our design for future collectors includes a buoyant, hydrodynamic shell with an extended lip to minimise seafloor compaction and reduce and redirect the dust plume kicked up during nodule collection," he continues.
The perimeter of the production vessel will be circulated by maintenance personnel, who will also oversee the collection of 60,000 tons of nodules to be stored Image: Courtesy of Bjarke Ingels Group
The nodules for further transfer into the shuttle carrier Image: Courtesy of Bjarke Ingels Group
Once harvested from the seafloor, the nodules will be transported through a flexible hose at the top of the collector and lifted along a sturdy riser pipe for about four kilometres by riser bubbles to a 216 metre production vehicle at the surface. Developed as a carbon-neutral vessel powered by electrofuels, the aquatic production vehicle has a streamlined design with a sunken deck covered by photovoltaics. Vessels will function with multiple collectors at every scale, and maintenance will be provided by support vessels with the capacity to retrieve collector vehicles.
Support Vessels will provide maintenance functions and retrieve collector vehicles Image: Courtesy of Bjarke Ingels Group
Within the vessels is a crane and reel to lift subsea collectors out of the water Image: Courtesy of Bjarke Ingels Group
The first-generation collector vehicle from The Metals Company has already been engineered - with testing set to commence early next year on models currently being constructed in The Netherlands by Allseas. Additionally, BIG’s next-gen vessels will enable the system to further expand up to a fleet of 10 vessels and produce over 40 million tons of battery metal by 2050, which is enough to power approximately a quarter of global passenger cars. In its final, scaled-up version, the system will employ shuttle carriers to transport and deposit nodules on a conveyor belt at the processing plant.
Alongside the first generation of collectors currently being built, BIG’s next-gen vessels will be imperative for the operations to expand Image: Courtesy of Bjarke Ingels Group
“We are remaking how society gets, uses and ultimately re-uses the base metals, which form the foundation of the clean energy economy,” says Barron, while adding that "BIG has delivered these radical, low-impact designs to help us remake an industry. Now the exciting question is, which port will we transform first?”
In the long run, the proposal presents an exciting prospect for sustainable resource mining through the convergence of automation, whole-systems design, and deep-sea research - all being vital in conserving earth's ecosystem.
Project Details
Name: DeepGreen Location: CCZ, Pacific Ocean Area: 100 sqm Program: Commercial Client: DeepGreen Metals Inc Status: Idea
Collaborators: The Metals Company
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