The Microbe-Mineral Atlas and Biomining for Metals for the Sustainable Energy Infrastructure, by Prof. Buz Barstow from Cornell University

Climate change is one of the biggest challenges of our lifetimes. But, it can’t be addressed by energy austerity: meeting human aspiration for a better life is a must. Global society needs to build a new carbon-neutral sustainable energy infrastructure, but this will come with an enormous new demand for metals. However, traditional technologies for metal extraction from ores and their separation pose extreme environmental impact given the extraordinary demand needed. 

Biomining (using microorganisms to dissolve minerals, separate, and concentrate metals) has the potential to provide selective and efficient access to metals from low-grade, globally distributed geologic and waste materials. Biomining is a growing reality: today it supplies 5 to 15% of the world’s gold and copper supplies from low grade ores. But, there are no industrially-useful microbes for either biomining most energy-critical metals. This means they will need to be built using synthetic biology with lessons from the natural world.

Profile: Dr. Buz Barstow is a physicist using synthetic biology to build sustainable energy technologies and is an assistant professor at Biological and Environmental Engineering, Cornell University. In this talk, he will describe work by his own lab to build genetically engineered microbes for biomining rare earth elements, for accelerated weathering and CO2 sequestration, and the new Microbe-Mineral Atlas Center.

Host: Prof. Paola Laurino