Ever thought flowers could mine for metals? In the rolling hills of Albania, a tiny plant is rewriting the rules of mining by soaking up nickel from the soil. 🌸🔋
Nickel is a key ingredient in electric vehicle batteries, but traditional mining can scar landscapes and guzzle energy. Enter a greener alternative: phytomining! 🌱
Meet Odontarrhena chalcidica, a hyperaccumulator that thrives on nickel-rich ultramafic soils covering 11% of Albania. These plants pull nickel through their roots and store it in their leaves and stems. When harvested and burned, the metal is extracted from the ash, creating a low-energy, efficient mining process.
Phytomining doesn’t just produce metals—it also cleans up toxic soils, restoring them for future agriculture. Think of it as farming metal and healing the land at the same time. 🌍
Professor Aida Bani from the Agricultural University of Tirana has spent over a decade studying these green miners. Her work laid the groundwork for startups like MetalPlant in Tropoja, which has dedicated seven hectares to phytomining experiments.
MetalPlant is taking it further by adding crushed olivine rock to the fields, boosting nickel uptake and capturing CO₂ as the rock weathers. The result? A carbon-negative approach to nickel production. ⚡️
If all goes well, Albania could lead a global shift to flower-powered mining, proving that sometimes, the smallest plants can make the biggest impact on our electric future.
Reference(s):
RAZOR: A sustainable approach to mining fueled by flower power
cgtn.com
