News & Highlights

American Rare Earths partners on DOE-funded R&D, drills at Wyoming, Arizona projects

Western Rare Earths joins Critical Materials Institute

Biological separation of REE using an immobilized protein
Potato wastewater could feed bacteria used to recycle high tech devices

Biosorption: LBT column for REE separation
Publications
David Reed at Idaho National Laboratory leads the CMI project "Biomaterials for critical material dissolution, recovery and separation"
This project modifies bacterial strains using state-of-the-art synthetic biology tools and optimizes growth conditions to efficiently utilize agricultural wastes for production of organic acids to optimize leaching of critical elements from a variety of solid end-of-life materials. Furthermore, the project will develop novel biomaterials through cell encapsulation for recovery and separation of rare earth elements via column chromatography.
Related information:
CMI Webinars - several CMI webinars have been offered related to recycling and to this project
Leadership development: Jongqin Jiao
Researchers in this area include the Joseph Cotrovu group at Penn State University: Cotrovo was interviewed for a podcast