Bacteria that can mine rare-earth elements from wastewater identified

New research published in Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology reports on a novel way of extracting rare-earth elements from waste streams – using bacteria!

Rare-earth elements are vital in modern technology such as wind turbines, LEDs, catalysts, and magnets, but they are unevenly distributed around the world, and securing their supply in an uncertain geopolitical situation has been a cause of concern.

This research could pave the way towards a way of acquiring these metals with less environmental impact. Thomas Brück, a professor at the Technical University of Munich and the study’s last author, said, “The cyanobacteria described here can adsorb amounts of rare-earth elements corresponding to up to 10% of their dry matter. Biosorption thus presents an economically and ecologically optimized process for the circular recovery and reuse of rare earth metals from diluted industrial wastewater from the mining, electronic, and chemical-catalyst producing sectors.”