Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Recovery of Rare Earth Elements from Geothermal Fluids through Bacterial Cell Surface Adsorption

Published by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory | Department of Energy | Catalog Last Checked: August 03, 2026 at 01:00 AM | Dataset Last Updated: August 09, 2018 at 08:16 PM
We summarized the FY17 and part of FY18 results of the analysis of the effect of several parameters (e.g., total dissolved solids, specific competing metals, pH, and temperature) on REE recovery from geothermal brine in a manuscript that was submitted to Environmental Science & Technology. In this manuscript, we investigate biosorption as a potential means of recovering REEs from geothermal fluids, a low-grade but abundant REE source. We have previously engineered E. coli to express lanthanide binding tags (LBTs) on the cell surface and the resulting strain showed an increase in both REE adsorption capacity and selectivity. Here we examined how REE adsorption by the engineered E. coli is affected by various geochemical factors relevant to geothermal fluids, including total dissolved solids (TDS), temperature, pH, and the presence of competing trace metals.

Resources

2 resources available

Find Related Datasets

data.gov

An official website of the GSA's Technology Transformation Services

Looking for U.S. government information and services?
Visit USA.gov