Human Practices

The raw metal industry is huge and as a small team of aspiring scientists, we can only do so much. This is why we talked to a diverse set of advisors, from our own professors and mentors, over companies from within in the industry, to potential sponsors for the project. It is important to us to consider all different perspectives and work their advice into the project so we can create a product that is safe, ethical, sustainable, and worthwhile.

Reflective

Our values

Responsibility: We have to protect our planet for future generations. With our project we want to face the global problem of disposing of raw metals by offering a cheap and environmentally friendly method for recycling.

Sustainability: To ensure raw metals are not lost permanently, we need to integrate them into continuous working cycles.

Education: We want to bring attention to this issue and teach other scientists, companies in the field, and the general public about our solution.

Our priorities

Sustainability: Without ecological, economic and social sustainability, our project loses its value. That is why we maintained a sustainability-focused approach throughout our project even if that meant that some easy solutions could not be applied. Some examples of how this thought influenced our work, are:

Choosing bioleaching instead of energy-intensive chemical recycling methods
Choosing oxalic acid instead of cyanide as the leaching agent
Deciding to create our own, safe oxalate production strain instead of using a natural producer like the spore-forming fungi A. niger
Refraining from using toluol as a solvent for PGM recovery

Of course, creating a process that is cheap as well as environmentally friendly and upholds ethical standards all at the same time is difficult since we can’t evaluate e.g. large-scale production and commercial value at this point.

How we compare to alternative solutions

Traditional recycling methods commonly rely on heavy chemical treatments like

Leaching in aqua regia
Oxidation in furnaces under high temperatures
Potassium bisulfide fusion under high temperature
Chlorination at elevated temperatures [Yakoumis et al, 2021]

Compared to that, our bioleaching-solution is

Less energy-intensive
Less toxic
Environmentally friendlier

Responsible

Potential problems

Usability: PGM recycling is mostly relevant for diesel or petrol engines, which emit tons of CO₂.

Comparability: How efficient and environmentally friendly our method is compared to already existing methods is yet to be determined. We'd need to mass produce reliable data and crunch the numbers on the economic front to give a clear answer.

Safety

Chemical waste: We communicated with the institute's safety and waste officers to organize the disposal of chemicals used, like oCPC for the oxalate assay and PGM solutions left over from chemical experiments. Proper waste management is greatly important to us, as one of our project's core principles is the reduction of hazardous waste.

S1 safety rules: When working with genetically modified C. glutamicum and other bacteria, S1 safety rules apply. All team members received safety training by the institute’s safety officer.

Project safety: When designing our project, safety was one of the main concerns since this is one big issue with traditional solutions. We decided against using toxic compounds wherever possible with the ulterior motive to create a safe process that is easily applicable in industry.

Ethics

Exploitation of workers: Workers harvest PGMs under unsafe working conditions for barely livable wages. A shift from unsafe PGM harvesting to our safe bioleaching method with improved working conditions is desirable.

Environmental concerns: PGM harvesting requires large amounts of energy and water. Harvesting sites often lead to habitat loss and chemical pollution of water sources. Efficient bioleaching could lower the need for harvesting and instead shift the focus to recycling.

Supply shortages: PGMs are rare. Industries dependent on them are highly vulnerable to supply shortages, which can cause prices to spike and companies to suffer losses. This further highlights the need for more and better recycling methods.

Responsive

Who we consulted

Mairec: To get a peek into the world of metal recycling and see where our project could go when upscaled.

IBVT: All of our lab work was done at the institute of bioprocess engineering under supervision of our supervisor and professors.

IPOC: For questions regarding the chemical part of our project, we were in contact with members of the institute of polymer chemistry at our university.

In the future, we want to also get in contact with experts regarding economic value and feasibility of our idea. Right now, we are getting in touch with the automobile industry, since they have an interest in cheap and safe PGM recovery for their automobile catalysts.

Conversing with experts

Mairec

Our goal: Gaining deeper insight into the current industrial process of leaching metals

What happened: A guided tour in the leaching facilities where we learned more about the current performance of conventional leaching. We learned how leaching is performed at large scales and how broad the potential in this field still is, especially for environmentally friendly concepts.

Main takeaways:

Leaching is a sophisticated process containing many stations of treatment during its run
The chemistry of our experiments is well established and needs the proper handling only. The crucial innovation however would be biological.
Quantification was crucial for determining the success rate of our experiments. Only proper analysis can verify proper lab work.

Impact:

Mairec supported us by providing us with a quantified sample of remnants of shredded catalysts which we used to perform first experiments.
For the biological side, we started working under the supervision of our supervisor Marvin Höninger.
We contacted experts working of analytical chemistry who consulted us on our experimental set-up and analysis

SRCSB day

On the SRCSB:

"The SRCSB structures and coordinates pioneering interdisciplinary research and training in systems biology and synthetic biology at the University of Stuttgart. The SRCSB operates across the boundaries of traditionally separated disciplines and faculties, providing the framework for seamless integration of life sciences, systems sciences and engineering."

The SRCSB Day is an annual event bringing together leading experts and researchers for a day of scientific exchange. The program features presentations from distinguished guest speakers alongside internal researchers, complemented by a poster session showcasing current research projects.

Our goal:

Presenting to an audience of experts from diverse disciplines allowed us to gain fresh perspectives from researchers encountering our project for the first time. Additionally, the experience offered valuable practice in delivering scientific presentations to a knowledgeable audience.

What happened:

We delivered a presentation on our project, followed by an Q&A session with the audience.

Main takeaways:

Presenting to a large audience of experts proved both challenging and exciting. Most importantly, we discovered that genuine passion for our project translates directly into confident delivery.

Our chemistry contacts

Dr. Vasileios Filippou: Dr. Filippou was our main contact of the chemistry department and an expert in analytics, whom we consulted when having questions about the chemical aspect of the project.

Dr. Klaus Dirnberger: Dr. Dirnberger provided us with glassware and the necessary chemical equipment. He also always listened, answered our questions, and connected us with the relevant experts within the Faculty of Chemistry.

Dr. Dongren Wang: Dr. Wang was our contact from the institute of polymer chemistry for measuring our leaching samples.

Patrick Probst M.Sc.: Patrick Probst performed the measurements of our leaching samples and helped us on questions with expertise about the measuring method.

iGem Global Pub Quiz

On 30th of August, the participants of several iGEM- Teams all around the globe met for a virtual pop quiz hosted by iGEM Lund. The pub quiz consisted of 28 quiz questions combining biological facts with pop culture references.

For around two hours,all teams worked separately to find the right answer to each question, guided by the two hosts who ensured a relaxing and cheerful atmosphere and were very open to give some extra tips for the solution.

Afterward, the right answer to each question was discussed. This gave us an additional opportunity to comment and review the quiz and also to learn more about each other. After this discussion, we said our goodbyes for now and parted into a relaxing evening. The winners were announced some days later per Mail.

We would like to thank iGEM Lund for offering this opportunity and for the entertaining moderation of the two hosts. We definitely recommend such meetings as an opportunity to learn more about other iGEM participants and their projects before the convention.

References

1. Yakoumis et al. (2021): Recovery of platinum group metals from spent automotive catalysts: A review, Cleaner Engineering and Technology, Volume 3. 100-112. URL: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clet.2021.100112