I-Corps: Biological Extraction and Purification of Rare Earth Elements

I-Corps：稀土元素的生物提取和纯化

• 批准号: 2228821
• 负责人: Buz Barstow
• 金额: $ 5万
• 依托单位: Cornell University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-08-01 至 2024-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2228821&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Corps; Biological; Extraction; Purification; Rare

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the potential development of an environmentally friendly, biology-based technology to extract and purify rare earth elements (REE). REE are elements from the periodic table consisting of the lanthanides elements as well as scandium and yttrium. They are essential ingredients in important modern technologies such as computers and catalysts, as well as many clean energy technologies such as windmills and electric cars. Currently, there is limited mining and purification of these critical minerals undertaken in the US. The proposed technology uses engineered bacteria to cleanly extract and purify REE from recycled and waste materials that are readily available in the US. Options for REE feedstocks include recycled electronics, coal ash, and various catalysts among other materials. This I-Corps project is based on the potential development of engineered bacteria capable of extracting and purifying rare earth elements (REE). The proposed technology uses the bacterium Gluoconobacter oxydans to produce an acidic biolixiviant capable of leaching REE into a solution from an REE-containing material. In addition, various strains of the bacteria Shewanella oneidensis are engineered to have binding sites on their membranes specific for a particular REE, which allows individual REEs to be adsorbed from a mixture. Individual REEs are then desorbed from the bacterial membranes to create a pure solution and precipitated from the solution as an oxide or carboxylate. Results at lab scale have shown that the engineered bacteria may produce a biolixiviant that will leach REE out of a feedstock into solution with a reasonably high efficiency and the relative affinity on the bacterial membrane for REE may be modified to enhance purification. The proposed technology may be used to extract and purify REE from waste such as coal ash as well as other feedstocks, providing a steady supply of REE.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

该 I-Corps 项目更广泛的影响/商业潜力是开发一种环境友好型、基于生物学的技术来提取和纯化稀土元素 (REE) 的潜力。稀土元素是元素周期表中的元素，由镧系元素以及钪和钇组成。它们是计算机和催化剂等重要现代技术以及风车和电动汽车等许多清洁能源技术的重要组成部分。目前，美国对这些关键矿物的开采和提纯有限。 拟议的技术使用工程细菌从美国容易获得的回收材料和废料中清洁地提取和纯化稀土元素。稀土原料的选择包括回收电子产品、煤灰和各种催化剂等材料。该 I-Corps 项目基于能够提取和纯化稀土元素 (REE) 的工程细菌的潜在开发。所提出的技术使用氧化葡萄糖杆菌来生产酸性生物浸滤剂，能够将稀土元素从含稀土元素的材料中浸出到溶液中。此外，各种希瓦氏菌菌株经过改造，在其膜上具有特定 REE 的特异性结合位点，从而可以从混合物中吸附单个 REE。然后，各个稀土元素从细菌膜上解吸，形成纯溶液，并以氧化物或羧酸盐的形式从溶液中沉淀出来。 实验室规模的结果表明，工程细菌可以产生一种生物浸滤剂，能够以相当高的效率将稀土元素从原料中浸出到溶液中，并且可以改变细菌膜上对稀土元素的相对亲和力以增强纯化。 拟议的技术可用于从煤灰等废物以及其他原料中提取和纯化稀土元素，从而提供稳定的稀土元素供应。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势进行评估，被认为值得支持以及更广泛的影响审查标准。