The overarching goal of this project is to find a sustainable process to recover uranium (U) and rare earth elements (REE) from AM waste, using microbial processes as the main mechanisms for metal leaching and precipitation.
This work is based on the hypothesis that ubiquitous microbial communities are able to cycle REE and U under limiting environmental conditions, and that the selective biorecovery of U and REE from mine wastes can be engineered by modifying operational parameters (electron donor, pH, salinity, and temperature) in order to enhance or inhibit microbial metabolic activity.
PI/Collaborators:
Lucia Rodriguez-Freire
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, lrfreire@njit.edu
