Chinese team reports first recovery of rare earth minerals from living plant

A Chinese-led team of scientists says it has found a naturally formed mineral with rare earth elements in a fern, a world first that offers a “green circular model” for extracting high-value rare earths, according to an institution behind the study.

The researchers said the discovery of nanoscale monazite in a living plant “opens new possibilities for the direct recovery of functional rare earth element materials”.

“To our knowledge, this is the earliest reported occurrence of rare earth elements crystallising into a mineral phase within a hyperaccumulator,” they said.

“This work substantiates the feasibility of phytomining and introduces an innovative, plant-based approach for sustainable rare earth element resource development,” the team wrote in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Science & Technology this month.

The researchers from the Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry under the Chinese Academy of Sciences collaborated with an earth scientist in the geosciences department at Virginia Tech in the United States for the work.

  

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