Phytomining – Extracting Minerals via Plants

If there are plants (there is a patent and a paper describing this in some algae, IDK if it has been replicated or not...) that have preferences (kinetic isotope effect!) for one isotope of uranium over the other you could technically have a uranium enrichment plant made from uranium enrichment...plants.

Isn&#x27;t this absurd? At a glance, shouldn&#x27;t it take acres and acres being cared for for months to, then some processing, to extract the same nickel as a mine in a day, maybe a week?<p>Are the nickel mines dry?<p>Anyone has a breakdown of the math?<p>Edit1:<p>&quot;But while the idea is still at a nebulous stage, there is considerable potential.<p>“In soil that contains roughly 5 percent nickel—that is pretty contaminated—you’re going to get an ash that’s about 25 to 50 percent nickel after you burn it down,” Dave McNear, a biogeochemist at the University of Kentucky, told Wired.<p>“In comparison, where you mine it from the ground, from rock, that has about .02 percent nickel. So you are several orders of magnitude greater in enrichment, and it has far less impurities.”&quot;<p>From :<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;singularityhub.com&#x2F;2024&#x2F;03&#x2F;28&#x2F;these-plants-could-mine-crucial-battery-materials-from-the-soil-with-their-roots&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;singularityhub.com&#x2F;2024&#x2F;03&#x2F;28&#x2F;these-plants-could-min...</a>

Even when plants don&#x27;t extract significant amounts of material, they can be useful in detecting sources. A paper about using synchrotron analyses to detect gold in eucalyptus comes to mind.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nature.com&#x2F;articles&#x2F;ncomms3614" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nature.com&#x2F;articles&#x2F;ncomms3614</a>

I am ignorant about agricultural research budgets, but $10M does not seem like a very serious amount to prove the basic concept and, much more importantly, the viability of scaling an industrial process. This is interesting, but I am guessing this is perceived by the program managers as a total moonshot.

My brother told me about these plants. He said that mines would plant them after they&#x27;ve already mined out as much of the ore as possible. They&#x27;re really good at getting out that last little bit but they&#x27;re not the first thing to reach for from a mining perspective.

Hmm, what plants do they have in mind? (google -&gt; <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Hyperaccumulators_table_%E2%80%93_2_:_Nickel" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Hyperaccumulators_table_%E2%80...</a> -&gt; sort by accumulation rates)<p>Turns out 29 of the top 30 are &quot;oops, all Brassica&quot; :-)

There was a story in a Donald Duck comic, i read as a kid, where Dagobert extracted Gold with the help of a &quot;Gold Flower&quot; in a piece of land, where the gold concentration was to low for manual mining.<p>Always thought, and got reassured through a study a few years ago about plants that genetically adapted to otherwise toxic amounts of nickel in rainforest areas (linked on HN), that this could be a way to extract minerals in a future more slowed down and sustainable utopian society.<p>Also really interesting are ways to detox soils through plants. Unfortunately, a local pioneer project for extracting industrial contamination, and than making biogas from the plants, was stopped, because it was just cost covering but not really creating monetary profit. A sad example of, how shortsighted the instant profit capitalism will act, if longterm effects are not integrated into the equation through regulations.<p>But what to expect from a species that puts great effort into spreading cultivation of seedless wine grapes, just to realize that grapeseeds have live prolonging effects. ; )

In an article(book maybe) about George Washington Carver [0], they mentioned how how recommended planting cowpeas as they are able to extract nitrogen from the air and put it back into the soil. This helped increase cotton yields when the cotton was planted in the same field after the cowpeas had been harvested.<p>As a side note, the Haber Process [1] was the industrial version of this and all of the preceding points, if not phytomining per se, feel very similar.<p>0 - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;George_Washington_Carver" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;George_Washington_Carver</a><p>1 - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Haber_process" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Haber_process</a>

Reminds me of Mel Chin’s art piece Revival Field[0], an attempt to remediate a hazardous waste area in Minnesota with plants. Apparently it is still going after more than 30 years.<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;melchin.org&#x2F;oeuvre&#x2F;artist-writing-revival-field&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;melchin.org&#x2F;oeuvre&#x2F;artist-writing-revival-field&#x2F;</a>.

In the game &quot;the Riftbreaker&quot; (Tower defense game with resource gathering &#x2F; research tree) you can use plants to mine rare materials. How cool that it isn&#x27;t far from reality.

I wonder if you could apply some of the same tech or principles from algae based diesel to extract minerals from a slurry rather than slow growing macroscopic plants?

Also phytoremediation: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.epa.gov&#x2F;sites&#x2F;default&#x2F;files&#x2F;2015-04&#x2F;documents&#x2F;a_citizens_guide_to_phytoremediation.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.epa.gov&#x2F;sites&#x2F;default&#x2F;files&#x2F;2015-04&#x2F;documents&#x2F;a_...</a>

Also covered here; <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;singularityhub.com&#x2F;2024&#x2F;03&#x2F;28&#x2F;these-plants-could-mine-crucial-battery-materials-from-the-soil-with-their-roots&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;singularityhub.com&#x2F;2024&#x2F;03&#x2F;28&#x2F;these-plants-could-min...</a>

Primitive Technology made a crude knife from the iron in scum collected from a forest stream[0].<p>0. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;dhW4XFGQB4o" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;dhW4XFGQB4o</a>

This is a great approach with huge opportunities for genetic modifications of in use organisms in correlation with their symbiotic relationships.

Magical Crops but irl

I do this when I eat plants.