Researchers at Arizona’s public universities are partnering with the mining community to find new ways to reuse copper mining waste rock.

The state mine inspector has determined there are billions of tons of copper byproduct across Arizona. The waste is usually pulverized to the size of fine sand.

This week, the Arizona Board of Regents approved a $3.6 million grant to assess the metal content in that waste. ABOR Chair Fred DuVal said researchers will be looking for elements like zinc and lithium that can be reused.

“And that’s timely because the battery technologies of the EV economy and of the clean energy economy require massive amounts of copper, zinc, cobalt, [and] lithium," he said. 

Elements like those are used in everything from cell phones to electric vehicles and pacemakers.