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refining rare earth elements after mining is costly, harmful to the environment and occurs abroad.
A new study describes a proof of principle for engineering a bacterium, Gluconobacter oxydans, that takes a big first step towards meeting skyrocketing rare earth element demand in a way that matches the cost and efficiency of traditional thermochemical extraction and refining methods.
The paper's senior author and an assistant professor of biological and environmental engineering at Cornell University is trying to come up with a low-temperature, low-pressure method for getting rare earth elements out of a rock.
There are 15 elements in the periodic table, which are needed for everything from computers to cell phones to electric vehicles.
The U.S. stopped producing its own rare earth elements more than 50 years ago. In China, the refining of these elements takes place almost entirely.
The majority of rare earth element production is done by foreign nations, according to the co-author. "For the security of our country and way of life, we need to get back on track."
To meet the U.S. annual needs for rare earth elements, 71.5 million tons of raw material would have to be mined.
Current methods rely on dissolving rock with hot sulphuric acid, followed by using organic solvent to separate very similar individual elements from each other in a solution.
We want to figure out a way to make a bug that does that job better.
The acid made by G. oxydans is used by the bacteria to pull rare earth elements from the rock. The genes of G. oxydans are being manipulated so that they are more efficient.
The researchers used a technology developed by Barstow that allowed them to disabling the 2,733 genes in G. oxydans' genome one by one. The team was able to identify which genes play roles in getting elements out of rock by selecting the specific mutants that knocked out their genes.
"I am very hopeful," said Gazel. "We have a process here that is going to be more efficient than anything that has been done before."
The study, "Gluconobacter oxydans Knockout Collection Finds Improved Rare Earth Elements", was published in Nature Communications.
There is more information about the generation of a Gluconobacter oxydans knockout collection. There is a DOI titled " 10.1038/s41467-021-27047-4".
Nature Communications is a journal.
There is a chance that the key to sustainable rare earth elements for tech is the bacterium.
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