Tuesday, January 7, 2025
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Bioengineering has a promising future when it comes to reusing elements of the green transition that seemed impossible until recently.
By Miguel Ángel García Vega
Throughout the darkest night of the soul, humanity has always found light. The great explorers of the 16th century faced the biggest challenges of their era, much like former US President John F. Kennedy did in the contemporary era when he chose to pursue the Moon landing—not because it was easy, but precisely because it was a “difficult task”. That was his reflection at Rice University (Houston, Texas), on September 12, 1962, just a few months before his assassination, in front of an enthusiastic crowd of young university students. The latest United Nations data shows that vital mineral extraction in the energy transition will increase by 60% by 2060. An electric car needs ten times more of these components than a combustion engine car. The challenge of recycling and reusing its metal minerals is one of the major challenges facing the well-known European Green Deal. This is the essence of man, however: solving problems. That's how humanity has evolved. Sometimes with incredible options.
A team at the University of Edinburgh (Scotland) is using bacteria (simple life forms) to extract lithium, cobalt, manganese as well as other minerals from old batteries and electronic equipment waste. “It's a difficult road but it's a necessary one,” states Louise Horsfall, director of Sustainable Biotechnology at the academic center. “If we are going to put an end to our petrochemical dependence, we will increasingly be linked to critical metals,” she says. And she points out that: “Voltaic plates, drones, 3D printers, hydrogen propulsion, wind turbines, electric motors”. These minerals, long overlooked on the periodic table of chemical elements, are crucial to everyone’s daily life. The behavior of these bacteria here is astonishing. Some can synthesize metal nanoparticles. Scientists use different types of bacteria depending on whether it is lithium or nickel.
Professor Horsfall is a pioneer in this field and among his collaborators - through the ReLib program - is researcher and engineer Nathalie Madoc. The explanation offers a concise overview of technical circuits while maintaining a unique perspective. Lean. “We take advantage of the natural resistance to metals and the selectivity of bacteria in order to extract critical metals such as lithium, cobalt, nickel, and manganese from used batteries,” Madoc explains. “Bacteria” - to put it simply - “mix with the dissolved metals from the used lithium ion bacteria (known as metal soup) and each type of bacteria creates the right conditions to select the dissolved metal ions into nanoparticles,” the engineer explains. Just like little nuggets of metal. This generalized process could be applied in the next few years. That is a source of hope: they are on the right track, and of course, nobody said it would be easy.
Andy Abbot, professor of chemistry-physics at the University of Leicester (England), is another of those voices that comes loaded with knowledge. He showcases the challenges and solutions to these metals. “Batteries last longer than expected, so there are few electric vehicles in the market”, he says. Despite the shortage of supply, the technique is already available. He states that “There is technology available to make the material safe and process it into precursor chemicals for batteries,”. Hope will always appear (the Apollo missions took almost a decade to land on the moon and humanity does not measure haste by time). “The scale and manual dismantling mean that the economy of the process is not quite favorable today, but this should improve,” he explains.
Just like going to the Moon, take-off conditions are complex. Sun, wind, rain. Despite its shortage - according to the World Economic Forum- the recycling rate of many critical metals is below 5%. As for batteries, it approximates to 1%. But humanity brings light where darkness prevails. A consortium - led by the Department of Bioscience at the University of Durham, England- has managed to transform cobalt into vitamin B12 (exactly how it sounds), one of the essential components in the human diet. Another option, known as bioremediation, involves breaking down pollutants in polluted waters. They go hand in hand with each other. As solutions arise, so do the problems of a complex geopolitically planet. No image exemplifies the challenges better than the Apollo missions, which also served as a geostrategic race. Last year - just before Christmas - China banned the export of technologies that extract and separate critical metals. It considers them strategic.
The Newton Laws come into play here: “For every action, there is always an equal and opposite reaction”. A little-known company, based in Colorado, Tusaar Corporation, has proven that it can recover at least 95% of valuable critical metals and scale up its processes. Rare earths are common, but they are diluted in the mineral and therefore must be extracted. They are aiming for the creation of a circular economy (although they do not detail the patented extraction system) and making part of the domestic supply available. In the past, wind farms demolished old turbines by demolishing them and burying the remains in open fields. All states today require owners of parks to responsibly remove and recycle turbines.
In those reddish and beautiful lands of lesser-known America, Gautan Khanna, CEO of Tussar, operates with the enthusiasm of someone who knows they are carrying out a vital task. “By recovering valuable metals from products at the end of their useful life, Europe and America can reduce their dependence on imported raw materials, stabilize supply chains as well as strengthen their positions in emerging green technologies,” he reports. He adds: “In this era of acceleration of international competition and technological urgency, achieving independence of critical metal recycling is not only strategic; it is imperative” is his concluding observation.
Miguel Ángel García Vega
He has been writing for EL PAÍS for some 25 years, currently for Cultura, Negocios, El País Semanal, Retina, Suplementos Especiales, and Ideas. His texts have been republished by La Nación (Argentina), La Tercera (Chile) or Le Monde (France). He has received, among others, the AECOC, Accenture, Antonio Moreno Espejo (CNMV) and Ciudad de Badajoz awards.
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