Pursuing the holy grail of critical minerals could be economically irrational, and Australia will need to bet on emerging technologies to make it viable, leading researchers say.

Despite global demand for critical minerals to fuel the world's insatiable appetite for technology, processing them isn't necessarily lucrative.

"Copper, as an example … in China they're actually running at a negative — you cannot build a smelter for copper any place in the world anymore for treatment because of the way it's being sponsored in China," Curtin University metallurgy professor Jacques Eksteen said.

" There's no normal economic rationale to build it. "

Speaking at a metallurgy festival, after Australia and the United States inked a $13 billion critical minerals deal to challenge China's dominan

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