Sustainable biological recycling of environmentally harmful substances (Rare Earth Elements) from electronic waste and waste water

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Rare earth is used in electronic devices such as cell phones, computers or energy-saving lamps. Their availability is limited and there are no eco-friendly recycling methods. Therefore, the partners in this project are working with regional industry to develop applicable recycling technology that can reclaim rare earths from electronic scrap. The aim is to make this technology usable for the economy in the program area. The region benefits from the gain in expertise and the availability of a valuable raw material. The time-consuming and expensive extraction, as well as the scarce supply of these raw materials on the world market allows the prices of rare earths to grow continuously. Currently, the People's Republic of China has almost assured itself the monopoly on mining and trading these metals. Due to the constant technical progress, it is already foreseeable today that the supply of rare earths is critical and thus the expansion of future technologies may be imperiled. The project partners want to counter this development with a new technology. To fulfill this task, it is necessary to have an international consortium consisting of representatives of the Czech Academy of Sciences (Institute of Microbiology, AV ČR), the IMC University of Applied Sciences Krems, the Danube University Krems (DUK) and the Karl Landsteiner Private University (KL ). The mission of this consortium is to find a common solution for the recovery of rare earth waste, e.g. electronic waste. For this purpose, a never used variant is applied, the recycling with the help of microorganisms (bacteria and algae). In order to solve this complex problem, the competence of all project partners is necessary. The realization time of 4 years results from the long cultivation cycles and the reproducibility of the results. AV ČR and FH Krems contribute their expertise in the use of microorganisms. The AV ČR possesses the competences necessary for the enrichment of rare earths in algae. The FH Krems uses their experience for the same task using extremophilic microorganisms. Both organizations supply the rare earth enriched cell mass to the DUK, who are experts in the segregation of this material. The KL is responsible for the analysis (identification and quantification of the rare earths in the samples).

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