Environment

Cobalt Institute seeks to increase the understanding of the role and presence of cobalt in the environment to ensure its safe use while addressing environmental challenges.

Cobalt is a naturally occurring element in the earth’s crust and cobalt is ubiquitously present in the air, soil, sediments, and water. It is a bio essential trace element for bacteria, plants, and animals, and organisms must acquire cobalt from their environment. 

Although beneficial at an essential dose, cobalt may be harmful when present in excess, at concentrations that organisms do not need. Concentrations of cobalt in the environment are therefore carefully managed.

On behalf of its Members, Cobalt Institute invests in high quality scientific studies to refine both environmental hazard and exposure assessments for cobalt.

This is to ensure that the mobilisation of cobalt in the environment by anthropogenic activities is responsibly and proportionately managed.

Cobalt Institute generates ecotoxicity datasets to evaluate the effects of cobalt on various organisms in different environments, e.g. water, sediments, and soils. These datasets help us understand cobalt’s potential impact on ecosystems.

Cobalt Institute submits these datasets to scientific publications for independent peer-review and quality assessment, to then facilitate access of these high-quality datasets for external stakeholders such as regulatory authorities. Ecotoxicity datasets for cobalt in freshwater (Stubblefield et al. 2020) and marine water (Saili et al. 2021) have recently been published.

Under frameworks such as the EU REACH Regulation, Cobalt Institute has developed a read-across approach to predict the environmental properties of cobalt substances from relevant information, including ecotoxicity tests conducted with a reference / source substance.

This approach is scientifically robust for the 20+ cobalt substances in the Cobalt Institute’s portfolio because they are structurally similar and liberate the cobalt ion in environmental media. It is the cobalt cation that is the ecotoxicologically relevant species for all cobalt substances.

Air, soil, water, sediment

  • Cobalt Institute is working to deepen understanding of the sources, forms, and concentrations of cobalt in various environments—an essential component of accurate exposure assessment.
  • Cobalt in the atmosphere comes from both natural sources (e.g. soil weathering, volcanic eruptions, forest fires) and human activities such as industrial use, vehicle emissions, and power generation. In soils, cobalt originates from rock weathering, atmospheric deposition, and direct application, with levels varying widely depending on local geology. In agriculture, cobalt may be added to soil or feed to prevent deficiencies in crops and livestock.
  • Cobalt concentrations in water vary by location and season, influenced by natural factors and human activities like mining, chemical production, and wastewater discharge. Some of this cobalt eventually accumulates in sediments.
  • A key factor in exposure assessment is cobalt’s chemical form. In soils, water, and sediments, cobalt binds with organic matter or forms complexes depending on environmental conditions such as pH. These factors influence the amount of free cobalt ion available for uptake by organisms. To refine exposure assessments and reduce uncertainty in risk predictions, the Cobalt Institute is developing computational models that account for cobalt speciation and bioavailability.