A German research team has found that some exotic photosynthetic cyanobacteria biomass can efficiently absorb rare earth elements from wastewater.
Biosorption was found to depend strongly on acidity: it was highest at a pH of between five and six and decreased steadily in more acid solutions. The process was most efficient when there was no “competition” for the biosorption surface on the cyanobacteria biomass from positive ions of other, non-REE metals such as zinc, lead, nickel, or aluminum.
“We found that biomass derived from cyanobacteria has excellent adsorption characteristics due to their high concentration of negatively charged sugar moieties, which carry carbonyl and carboxyl groups. These negatively charged components attract positively charged metal ions such as REEs, and support their attachment to the biomass,” Michael Paper, first author of the study, said.
Brück, Paper and their colleagues concluded that biosorption of REEs by cyanobacteria is possible even at low concentrations of the metals. The process is also fast: for example, most cerium in solution was biosorbed within five minutes of starting the reaction. “The cyanobacteria described here can adsorb amounts of REEs corresponding to up to 10% of their dry matter. Biosorption, thus, presents an economically and ecologically optimized process for the circular recovery and reuse of rare earth metals from diluted industrial wastewater from the mining, electronic, and chemical-catalyst-producing sectors,” Brück said.
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