BEAR - Bioleaching and Electrodialytic Applications for metal Recovery from wastes

金属是我们日常生活中的必需品，供应有限。例如，智能手机是口袋大小的关键金属拱顶，因为它们含有几种稀土元素(REE)，这些元素能产生液晶显示器的颜色，而其他元素则让屏幕发光。扬声器、麦克风和振动单元中的磁铁也含有稀土元素。目前开采这些金属的二氧化碳排放量和环境影响是站不住脚的。这些金属的供应链也取决于地缘政治条件，目前，中国是世界上最大的生产商。为了减少对关键金属开采的依赖，我们需要新的高效、低成本、低能源和环保的解决方案来从废物中回收金属。该项目将开启英国和丹麦之间的新合作，加入在各自专业领域相互补充的团队。互访和讲习班将促进这项旨在开发从废物中回收关键金属的环境友好型方法的合作研究。我们将使用从不同环境中分离出来的耐金属细菌，并利用它们在低水平电流的反应堆中溶解金属的能力。这种新方法将结合两种不同的技术--生物浸出和电渗析。生物浸出使用产酸细菌来溶解各种矿石和废物中的金属。然而，这一过程可能非常缓慢，需要进一步的分离过程，因此它将与电渗析相结合。电渗析使用低电平电流通过膜传输离子。细菌从废物中溶解的金属可以通过电流运输和分离，更容易回收。这个项目将展示我们如何将这些技术结合起来，为扩大和应用不同的废物提供一条直接的途径，有助于更有效和可持续地利用资源，从废物中回收价值，并将污染降至最低。

Metals are essential in our daily lives and have a finite supply. For example, smartphones are pocket-sized vaults of critical metals, as they contain several rare earth elements (REE) that produce the colours in the liquid crystal display, and others give the screen its glow. The magnets in the speaker, microphone and vibration units also contain REE. The current CO2 emissions and environmental impact of mining those metals are untenable. The supply chain of these metals is also dependent on geopolitical conditions, and currently, China is the world's largest producer. To decrease our reliance on critical metal mining, we need new efficient, low-cost, low-energy and environmentally friendly solutions to recover metals from waste. This project will start a new collaboration between UK and Denmark, joining teams that complement each other in their expertise. Exchange visits and a workshop will facilitate this collaborative research that aims to develop an environmentally friendly method to recover critical metals from wastes. We will be using metal-tolerant bacteria isolated from different environments and exploiting their capability to solubilise metals in a reactor with a low-level electric current. This new approach will combine two different technologies - bioleaching and electrodialysis. Bioleaching uses acid-producing bacteria to solubilise metals from various ores and wastes. However, the process can be very slow, and further separation processes are needed, so it will be combined with electrodialysis. Electrodialysis uses a low-level electric current to transport ions through a membrane. The metals that bacteria solubilise from waste can be transported and separated by the electric current and more easily recovered. This project will demonstrate how we can combine these technologies, providing a direct route for scaling up and applying to different wastes, contributing to more efficient and sustainable resource use, recovering value from waste and minimising pollution.