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

I-Corps项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是开发一种环境友好的、基于生物的提取和纯化稀土元素技术的潜力。稀土元素是元素周期表上的元素，由镧系元素以及钪和钇组成。它们是重要的现代技术（如计算机和催化剂）以及许多清洁能源技术（如风车和电动汽车）的基本成分。目前，美国对这些关键矿物的开采和净化工作有限。拟议中的技术使用工程细菌从美国现成的回收和废物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。这个I-Corps项目是基于能够提取和净化稀土元素（REE）的工程细菌的潜在发展。所提出的技术使用氧化葡萄杆菌生产一种酸性生物浸出剂，能够将稀土元素从含稀土物质中浸出到溶液中。此外，各种希瓦氏菌菌株被设计成在其膜上具有特定REE的结合位点，这使得单个REE可以从混合物中吸附。然后，单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析出。实验室规模的结果表明，工程细菌可以产生一种生物浸出剂，以相当高的效率将稀土从原料中浸出到溶液中，并且可以修饰细菌膜对稀土的相对亲和力以增强纯化。所提出的技术可用于从煤灰等废物以及其他原料中提取和净化稀土元素，从而提供稳定的稀土元素供应。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

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.