Bioleaching of metals

在国际空间站最近进行的实验中，观察到一种来自陆地的细菌能够从玄武岩中浸出轻稀土元素和重稀土元素。这将很快在科学文献中报道，但有必要进行进一步的研究，以了解这种能力在细菌物种中的广泛程度，以前没有报道过这种能力表现出这种活性，以及使用的机制。一旦获得了这些基础知识，该项目将使用合成生物学工具和技术来优化选择性金属回收并驯化细菌，目的是能够与合作伙伴扫描电子显微镜一起在工业过程中使用这种细菌。稀土元素是关键金属；苏格兰、英国和欧洲严重依赖来自更远地区的稀土供应。这类材料的临界性是一个动态现象，取决于平衡使用、库存和政治；2017年欧盟范围内的评估确定了27种关键原材料。在这项研究中，17种稀土元素被分为轻稀土和重稀土，这两组元素都具有重要的经济意义，因为它们对许多高科技产品的制造至关重要。在所有关键原材料中，轻稀土对欧盟的供应风险最高，紧随其后的是重稀土，因此应抓住每一个机会优先回收它们。

During recent experiments conducted on the International Space Station, it was observed that a bacterium of terrestrial origin was capable of leaching light and heavy rare earth elements from basaltic rock. This will soon be reported in the scientific literature but further studies are necessary to understand how extensive this ability is within the species of bacterium, previously unreported to exhibit this activity, and the mechanism used. Once this fundamental knowledge has been gained, this project will use synthetic biology tools and techniques to optimise selective metal recovery and to domesticate the bacterium, with the aim of being able to use this bacterium in an industrial process with partners SEM. The rare earth elements are critical metals; Scotland, the UK and Europe are hugely dependent on their supply from further afield. The criticality of such materials is a dynamic phenomenon, dependent on balancing usage, stocks and politics; the EU wide assessment in 2017 identified 27 critical raw materials. Within this study the 17 rare earth elements are grouped into the light REEs and the heavy REEs, both groups being of significant economic importance as they are vital to the manufacture of many hi-tech products. Light REEs have the highest supply risk to the EU of all critical raw materials, closely followed by heavy REEs, thus their recovery should be prioritised at every opportunity.