Bacteria may be the key technology for sustainable extraction of earth elements

Rare earth elements extracted from ore are essential to modern life, but extracting them after mining is expensive, harmful to the environment, and most of them occur abroad

A new study describes a principle that proves that engineered bacteria, Gluconobacter gluconate, requires a big first step to meet the skyrocketing demand for rare earth elements in a way that matches the cost and efficiency of traditional thermochemical extraction and refinement.

Buz Barstow, the senior author of this paper and assistant professor of biological and environmental engineering at Cornell University, said: “We are trying to come up with an environmentally friendly, low-temperature, low-pressure method to extract rare earths from rocks.

There are 15 elements in the periodic table, which are necessary for everything from computers, mobile phones, screens, microphones, wind turbines, electric cars, conductors to radar, sonar, LED lights and rechargeable batteries

Although the United States once refined rare earth elements on its own, this production ceased more than 50 years ago

"Most of the production and extraction of rare earth elements are in the hands of foreign countries," said co-author Esteban Gazel, associate professor of earth and atmospheric sciences at Cornell University

In order to meet the annual demand for rare earth elements in the United States, approximately 71.

The current method relies on dissolving the rock with hot sulfuric acid and then using an organic solvent to separate very similar individual elements from the solution

Barstow said: "We want to find a way to make a loophole better in this regard

As we all know, G.

To this end, the researchers used a technology called "Knockout Sudoku" that Barstow helped to develop, enabling them to destroy 2,733 genes in the genome of oxidized G.

"I'm very optimistic," Gazel said

Article title

Generation of a Gluconobacter oxydans knockout collection for improved extraction of rare earth elements