Creation of environment-friendly technology that connects resources and materials
Mineral Processing, Recycling & Environmental Remediation Laboratory, Professor Keiko SASAKI

Mineral Processing, Recycling & Environmental Remediation Laboratory has a long history of more than 100 years with the history of Kyushu University, although its name has changed, and is engaged in research and education aimed at discovering and overcoming all engineering issues that lie between resources and materials. Mining engineering, which once supported the arteries of industry, has now become a field of comprehensive engineering and earth system engineering and is still inherited.

The process from resource mining to utilization is likened to the flow of a river. In global resources system engineering, mineral processing engineering and environmental remediation engineering, which are located in the most downstream areas, are not only fields that deal with the resource production stage, but also fields that deal with the input stage of new supply chains.

Furthermore, this idea will be extended not only to natural resources on the earth but also to wastes of metal products (urban mines) and objects that are positioned as the gateway to the materialization of extraterrestrial resources.

The point is that mineral processing engineering has a separation/purification mission that raises the order of purity when upgrading from resources to materials, and environmental remediation engineering is the inside out, it separates unnecessary substances and repellent elements and stabilizes them.

Looking at the research results of our laboratory for a long time, it seems that the treasure trove of the earth still has unknown abilities. Microorganisms that act on solid minerals and decompose them, minerals that respond to light and convert light energy into chemical energy, minerals that assist it, natural organic matter that aggregates mineral fine particles, and only adding those a few human interventions, we will notice that nature can be reborn anywhere.

The Great East Japan Earthquake struck in 2011, and the leakage of radioactive waste from nuclear power plants became a major problem. Furthermore, in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has become at the top of all human activity judgments, tightening behavioral restrictions, stopping economic activity, and trying to upset our lives from the ground up. Living in this era where no one could have predicted what would have happened like this, it is genuinely required that we should work on comprehensive engineering from a comprehensive and flexible perspective in order to make the best use of our current efforts.

As the closest comprehensive engineering engineers who can contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set by the United Nations, we hope to keep active for the creation of environment-friendly technology that connects resources and materials to the world.