Phytomining For Nickel

jvl001 writes "The Globe and Mail has an interesting article about Inco's attempts to extract nickel from a plant (alyssum) grown on nickel rich soil. Selective breeding and bacterial adjuncts are capable of producing a plant that once incinerated may produce ash with up to 30% nickel. Waste heat from the incineration process may be used for power generation. A neat way of making use of use of land otherwise unusable for agriculture. In this case unusable because of past Inco activity."

Can this reclaim land?

[bsmoor01]

I realize the article says that some soil can provide many years of nickel mining, but will these extraordinarily tough plants help reclaim the land for agriculture? Once the plants have extracted all they can, I wonder if the toxicity levels will be low enough for food-producing plants to thrive once again.

Re:Can this reclaim land?

[Webmonger]

Yes. Here's a paper [iastate.edu] (in PDF) that discusses phytoextraction as a means of reducing heavy metal contamination:

Of course, the practicality depends on the level of concentration and the efficiency of the plants. . .

This sounds cool, but...

[0x69]

Let's see... You've got to control air pollution from the burning. Plant-nutrient minerals in the ash probably need to be seperated from the nickel and returned to the soil. (Or is spreading mineral fertilizer cheaper...but where does what's left of the nickel-removed-from-it ash go?). A nickel plant that's running 24x7x365 on ore from a strip mine enjoys a certain economy over one that's usually idle & waiting for the fall harvest.

It would be nice if this worked in the real world, especially if such techniques could be extended to other minerals, pollutants, etc.

Pollution controls seem to be built-in...

[boredman]

Disclaimer: I just read the article, so this is pure conjecture.

Since they're burning plants, the process is close to CO2-neutral. The plants take in CO2 as they grow which is re-emitted when they burn. When burned in a (presumably) oxygen-rich mining furnace, CO and NOx emissions are probably fairly low.

The entire point of the process is to recover ash and other particulates, so one would expect fairly tight control of those, too.

-boredman

Re:This sounds cool, but...

[cp99]

It would be nice if this worked in the real world, especially if such techniques could be extended to other minerals, pollutants, etc.

Actually it can (and does). Back in my old university, there were a couple of profs who studied it. One even found a plant that would take up gold out of the soil, after treatment with thiocynate ions.

Extracting Nickel from a plant?

[Gudlyf]

So my dad was wrong all along -- money DOES grow on trees!

Re:Extracting Nickel from a plant?

[Medevo]

nah, it does grow on trees, its more like nuts and just grows in the soil

technical yes, but oh well

Medevo

Great to see phytoremediation in action!

[HorizonXP]

I remember doing a project about phytoremediation last year, and I thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread! A cheap, effective, and relatively environmentally friendly way of cleaning up after ourselves. And now, apparently economical too. Usually in phytoremediation they use plants that grow quickly (like hemp) so "waiting for the fall harvest" really isn't necessary. Besides, looks like they're genetically engineering the plants anyway, might as well turn up the growth factor too. I think phytoremediation is one of the emerging techs that will save us... it can extract many different kinds of heavy metals, INCLUDING radioactive metals, which is wonderful. My props go to Inco!