Preliminary research suggests seaweed can trap and store valuable minerals. Is this the beginning of a new type of mining?
This article was originally featured on Hakai Magazine, an online publication about science and society in coastal ecosystems. Read more stories like this at hakaimagazine.com. Seaweed is versatile; it provides habitat for marine life, shelters coastlines, and absorbs carbon dioxide. But in the United States, scientists are setting out to see whether seaweed has another particularly valuable trick hidden up its proverbial sleeve: to act as a salty, slimy source of precious minerals.
takes big swings and looks for big rewards. And so far, the agency has awarded US $5-million to three ventures investigating whether seaweed can serve as a practical source of critical materials, such as platinum and rhodium, as well as rare earth elements, including neodymium, lanthanum, yttrium, and dysprosium. These valuable elements, which can be captured and concentrated by seaweed, are essential to the green energy transition—and to technology more broadly.
. “The chances of success are low. But if we succeed, then the implications are huge.” Two key principles underlie this research, Umanzor says. For one, seaweed grows quickly and sucks minerals out of the water to do so. For two, seaweed’s cell walls are structured from sulfated polysaccharides—compounds made of long chains of sugar molecules. Sulfated polysaccharides are negatively charged, meaning they attract positively charged minerals floating nearby. “It’s pure chemistry,” Umanzor says.
—finished last year, though they’re continuing to dig into the topic. So far, the team’s work suggests that seaweed can be processed to produce a carbon-rich component used in concrete or biofuel manufacturing and a second mineral component containing elements such as phosphorus. There are a lot of unknowns, says Edmundson. Different seaweeds appear to have distinct mechanisms for getting minerals out of seawater and unique ways of incorporating or concentrating them in their tissues.
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