CMI Project 3.2.13: Biomaterials for critical material dissolution, recovery and separation

News & Highlights

Drilling at Halleck Creek in Wyoming. Image from American Rare Earths.

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

Western Rare Earths joins Critical Materials Institute

$graphs show Lanmodulin enables high-purity separation of Nd/Dy. A solution comprising a 5:95 mixture of Dy:Nd (pH 3) was subjected to two coupled adsorption/desorption cycles. The first cycle (left panel) generated a high-purity Nd solution (99.9%) and an upgraded Dy (44% Dy/ 56% Nd) solution. The upgraded Dy solution was used as a feed solution in a second adsorption/desorption cycle (right panel) to generate high-purity Dy and Nd fractions. The duration of each pH step is depicted by the dark gray dashed$ Research Highlight

Biological separation of REE using an immobilized protein

In the News

Potato wastewater could feed bacteria used to recycle high tech devices

REE breakthrough curves with REE mixtures that contain lanthanides and Y.

Research Highlight

Biosorption: LBT column for REE separation

Publications

Aaron Brewer Alice Dohnalkova Vaithiyalingam Shutthanandan Libor Kovarik Elliot Chang April M. Sawvel Harris E. Mason David Reed Congwang Ye William F. Hynes Laura N. Lammers Dan M. Park Yongqin Jiao

Microbe Encapsulation for Selective Rare-Earth Recovery from Electronic Waste Leachates

Environmental Science and Technology, 2019

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