Gut Melanie, Wilhelm Tatum, Beniston Olivia, Ogundipe Safiyyah, Kuo Chao-Chi, Nguyen Kristine, Furst Ariel
Department of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA.
Adv Mater. 2025 Mar;37(10):e2412607. doi: 10.1002/adma.202412607. Epub 2025 Jan 16.
Rare earth elements (REEs) are essential for many clean energy technologies. Yet, they are a limited resource currently obtained through carbon-intensive mining. Here, bio-scaffolded proteins serve as simple, effective materials for the recovery of REEs. Surface expression of the protein lanmodulin (LanM) on E. coli, followed by freeze-drying of the microbes, yields a displayed protein material for REE recovery. Four REE cations (Y, La, Gd, and Tb) are captured efficiently, with over 80% recovery even in the presence of competitive ions at one-hundred-fold excess. Moreover, these materials are readily integrated into a filter with high capture capacity (12 mg g dry cell weight) for the selective isolation and recovery of REEs from complex matrices. Further, the proteins in the filter remain stable over ten bind-and-release cycles and a week of storage. To improve the deployability of this filter material, a simple colorimetric assay with the dye alizarin-3-methyliminodiacetic acid is incorporated. The assay can be performed in under 5 min, enabling rapid monitoring of REE recovery and filter efficiency. Overall, this low-cost, robust material will enable environmentally friendly recycling and recovery of critical elements.
稀土元素（REEs）对许多清洁能源技术至关重要。然而，它们是一种有限的资源，目前通过碳密集型采矿获得。在此，生物支架蛋白作为回收稀土元素的简单、有效材料。将蛋白镧调蛋白（LanM）在大肠杆菌表面表达，然后对微生物进行冷冻干燥，得到用于回收稀土元素的展示蛋白材料。四种稀土阳离子（Y、La、Gd和Tb）被高效捕获，即使在存在一百倍过量竞争离子的情况下，回收率仍超过80%。此外，这些材料很容易集成到具有高捕获能力（12毫克/克干细胞重量）的过滤器中，用于从复杂基质中选择性分离和回收稀土元素。此外，过滤器中的蛋白质在十个结合-释放循环和一周的储存期内保持稳定。为了提高这种过滤材料的可部署性，引入了一种使用茜素-3-甲基亚氨基二乙酸染料的简单比色测定法。该测定可在5分钟内完成，能够快速监测稀土元素的回收和过滤效率。总体而言，这种低成本、耐用的材料将实现关键元素的环境友好型回收利用。
