E-waste

Includes any discarded device with a plug or battery.

Their large number and improper disposal is a serious threat for people and the planet.

Here are a few facts and numbers linked to e-waste:

62 Million tonnes of electronic waste are produced each year worldwide, a number expected to rise to 82 million tonnes per year by 2030.

22.3% of e-waste was properly collected and recycled in 2022, the 77.7% unrecycled parts contributed to worldwide pollution.

62 Billion $ of potentially reusable material from e-waste was lost due to improper disposal and inefficient recycling.

Part of this problem is...

Rare Earth Elements

a.k.a. REE are Lanthanides along with Scandium and Yttrium, found in small quantities in the earth's crust.

They are fundamental building blocks of all modern electronic equipment.

Less than 1%

Of REE are actually extracted from e-waste and currently recycled.

These current recycling methods aren't effective and require...

Polluting chemicals

This is due in big part because existing lanthanides separation methods are inefficient.

Our solution!

Displaying thousands of copies of REE binding proteins on the surface of bacterial cells.

We created a greener alternative to REE capturing and separation.

Lanthanides like Lanthanum, Cerium, Gadolinium, Neodymium, Praseodymium, and Dysprosium are captured individually in their ionic form when dissolved in a solution, and then extracted in a pellet.

Engineering bacteria

To produce lanthanides-binding proteins, we provide a sustainable system for REE separation, without need for polluting chemicals.

One more thing...

Tellurium

Tellurium is an increasingly important element in industry, especially for solar panels, whose demand is expected to grow rapidly in the coming years.

The tellurium industry generates a toxic byproduct: tellurite. By engineering E. coli with the tellurite resistance cluster terABCD from P. putida, we introduce a novel approach to reduce toxic tellurite back into valuable elemental tellurium.

If you want to learn more about this project click on the link below:

Project description

Our promotional video