Microbes for Mining Rare Earth Elements from Electronic Waste

Background:

Rare earth elements (REEs) are among the most critical metals, with increasing demand worldwide due to their outstanding optical, magnetic, physical, and chemical properties. REEs are indispensable for a variety of technologies, including electric vehicles, wind turbines, hydrogen storage, high energy batteries, high-intensity magnets, lasers, and colored phosphors. These play a crucial role in clean energy, energy security, and environmental sustainability. However, due to growing market needs and insufficient supply, the world faces an increasing risk of REEs shortage. Therefore, aside from the conventional rare earth mining, more sustainable approaches for recovering these valuable metals from wastes or end-of-life products that contain high quantities of REEs are needed to address the current and future market demands.

Technology Overview:

This technology intelligently harnesses the natural power of microorganisms, combines the best players in dissolving metals together, and creates communities that can best leach REEs from electronic waste (EW). This process can serve as the foundation for leaching techniques that can be used to dissolve crucial metals from various types of EWs at commercial scale cost-effectively. As a result, EW (which previously has typically ended up in landfills where it could create an ecological hazard) can now serve as an important source of REEs and other metals and thus contribute to a circular economy.

Advantages:

•    Recovers rare earth elements and other metals from electronic waste.
•    Reduces the amount of EW that ends up in landfills.
•    Creates a circular economy that reduces the need for mining REEs while benefiting the environment.

Applications:

The primary application for this technology is recovery of rare earth elements from electronic waste. These metals are used in a wide range of applications, including:
•    Electric vehicles.
•    Wind turbines.
•    Hydrogen storage.
•    High energy batteries.
•    High-intensity magnets.
•    Lasers.

Intellectual Property Summary:

Know-how based

Stage of Development:

TRL 3 - Experimental proof of concept

Licensing Status:

This technology is available for licensing.

Licensing Potential:

This technology would be of interest to anyone involved in the production of rare earth elements and/or electronic components, including:
•    Providers of raw materials for electronics.
•    Electronic component manufacturers.
•    Electronic equipment and devices manufacturers.
•    Research institutions.
•    Investors in eco-friendly solutions.