Dr Denis Fougerouse, Senior Lecturer at Curtin University, is helping secure Australia’s role in the global transition to clean energy by improving how we find and extract critical minerals—the essential elements powering renewable technologies like batteries, wind turbines, and solar panels.
Despite Australia’s rich mineral resources, many critical elements remain underutilised because they are difficult to detect and extract efficiently. Dr Fougerouse’s research bridges this gap by using nanoscale analytical techniques to image atoms within minerals, revealing how valuable metals are distributed at the atomic level. He discovered that these metals are often concentrated in tiny crystal defects rather than uniformly spread throughout minerals—a finding that has major implications for how we mine and process critical resources.
Leading a research group at Curtin University, Dr Fougerouse studies the geological and mineralogical processes that control critical element formation and mobility. His work provides the scientific foundation needed to improve mineral recovery, reduce waste, and build a more diverse, resilient, and sustainable critical minerals supply chain for the future.