China’s coal waste could become the next critical metal resource, report suggests

A new report says China could recover critical metals from coal ash and mining waste to support supply chains for batteries, electronics, and other advanced industries.

The proposal points to China’s huge coal sector and processing capacity as a major advantage for building a domestic recovery industry.

Coal waste can contain valuable metals such as germanium, gallium, lithium, aluminum, and rare earths.

But concentrations vary widely by source, so extraction may be technically uncertain and not always economical.