11/3/2023 0 Comments Ithaca journal newsWhy, two decades after opening, did the Eden Project in Cornwall, England - a self-described “living theatre of plants and people”- introduce a geothermal heat facility on its grounds? More curiously, why did it not integrate, spatially and aesthetically, the Eden Geothermal facility with its gardens and greenhouses just a kilometer away? By not doing so it lost the opportunity to reveal the site’s, and the culture’s, fraught relationship with the latent energy that lies beneath the Earth’s surface. Journal Link: Scientific Reports, Sept.David Salomon, Coordinator of the Architectural Studies program in the Department of Art, Art History and Architecture had his essay, "Caring for Heat: Re-presenting Geothermal Energy at the Eden," published in the on-line journal Platform. For additional information, see this Cornell Chronicle story. ![]() Department of Energy and a gift from Mary Fernando Conrad and Tony Conrad. The group anticipates creating a pilot-scale purification system by 2028.įunding for this research was provided by Cornell Atkinson, the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), part of the U.S. “Our process potentially would be significantly less land- and capital-intensive to build,” Medin said, “as our separations could be done with repeated enrichment through columns full of immobilized bacteria instead of mixer-settler plants that are miles long.” “Our process would make environmentally harmful solvents unnecessary. “Currently all the purification of rare earth elements is done abroad, due to stringent environmental regulations and high infrastructure costs of building a separations plant,” he said. This work has the potential to make processing rare earths cleaner and scalable, said lead author Sean Medin, a doctoral student in Barstow’s lab. oneidensis’s genome allows scientists to tweak its preference for processing the other rare earth elements. Specifically, the microbe favors europium.Ĭharacterizing the S. oneidensis prefers dining on the f-block elements residing in the sixth row of the periodic table, known as the lanthanides. The microbe selectively adsorbs – or clings – to these rare earth elements, making it an ideal candidate to carry out an eco-friendly purification procedure. We’re making the purification process greener.” Here we have a green alternative that uses microbes to selectively adsorb and purify rare earth elements, eliminating the need for harmful chemicals. “These methods are costly and environmentally damaging. “The problem with the current methods of rare earth element purification is that they rely heavily on organic solvents and harsh chemicals,” said senior author Buz Barstow, assistant professor of biological and environmental engineering. ![]() Their research, “ Genomic characterization of rare earth binding by Shewanella oneidensis,” was published in Scientific Reports. supply for clean energy infrastructure and defense applications. But a new technology, envisioned by the scientists and powered by a microbe, could make processing rare earth elements cleaner and scalable - helping provide a steady U.S. Today, retrieving these metals from raw ore requires processing with acids and solvents. Rare earth elements power electric cars, wind turbines and smartphones. The research paves the way towards replacing the harsh chemical processing of these elements with a benign practice called biosorption. – Cornell University scientists have characterized the genome of a metal-loving bacteria with an affinity for rare earth elements.
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