Abstract
The increasing demand for rare earth (RE) elements in advanced materials for permanent magnets, rechargeable batteries, catalysts and lamp phosphors necessitates environmentally friendly approaches for their recovery and separation. Here, we propose a mineralization concept for direct extraction of RE ions with Lamp (lanthanide ion mineralization peptide). In aqueous solution containing various metal ions, Lamp promotes the generation of RE hydroxide species with which it binds to form hydrophobic complexes that accumulate spontaneously as insoluble precipitates, even under physiological conditions (pH ∼6.0). This concept for stabilization of an insoluble lanthanide hydroxide complex with an artificial peptide also works in combination with stable scaffolds like synthetic macromolecules and proteins. Our strategy opens the possibility for selective separation of target metal elements from seawater and industrial wastewater under mild conditions without additional energy input.
Highlights
The increasing demand for rare earth (RE) elements in advanced materials for permanent magnets, rechargeable batteries, catalysts and lamp phosphors necessitates environmentally friendly approaches for their recovery and separation
The pH of the solution containing Ln3 þ decreased with peptide addition (Fig. 2f and Supplementary Fig. 10), in agreement with the Lanthanide elements (Ln) hydroxylation reaction: Lnn þ þ nH2O$Ln(OH)n þ nH þ. These findings demonstrate that isolated peptides can precipitate Ln hydroxide directly from Ln3 þ under mild conditions, supporting our concept that an insoluble lanthanide hydroxide complex can be stabilized with an artificial peptide
We identified Asp to have an interesting function in our system by examining the reaction of Dy3 þ and Nd3 þ with each amino acid in lanthanide ion mineralization peptides (Lamps)-1
Summary
The increasing demand for rare earth (RE) elements in advanced materials for permanent magnets, rechargeable batteries, catalysts and lamp phosphors necessitates environmentally friendly approaches for their recovery and separation. In aqueous solution containing various metal ions, Lamp promotes the generation of RE hydroxide species with which it binds to form hydrophobic complexes that accumulate spontaneously as insoluble precipitates, even under physiological conditions (pH B6.0) This concept for stabilization of an insoluble lanthanide hydroxide complex with an artificial peptide works in combination with stable scaffolds like synthetic macromolecules and proteins. Biomineralization is a unique phenomenon that proceeds spontaneously under low-energy conditions in living organisms to form organic/inorganic composite materials, such as teeth, bone and pearls[8,9,10,11] These sophisticated systems are controlled by biomolecule functionalities that selectively recognize target ions (or molecules) and self-organization[12,13,14,15], which has fuelled interest in biological material design[16]. The biomineralization-based system reported here provides an alternative approach for RE recovery
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