Mining for nickel now requires little more than a green thumb, thanks
to a patented process created by the United States Department of
Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service and Viridian Resources,
L.L.C. of Houston, Texas.
The process involves metal-loving plants that can extract nickel and
other metals from the earth without machinery.
ARS and Viridian worked with the University of Maryland, Oregon State
University and the United Kingdom’s University of Sheffield to show
that phytomining – the use of plants to extract useful amounts of metal
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from soil – is commercially feasible.
Using certain plant species that accumulate nickel from contaminated
soils, scientists developed an environmentally friendly alternative to
traditional mining.
Researchers targeted plant species that hyperaccumulate, which means
recovering unusually high amounts of metal through their roots.
By evaluating several hundred strains of hyperaccumulating plants for
favorable genetic characteristics, the team developed the first
commercial crop capable of hyperaccumulating nickel, cobalt and other
metal. This hay-like crop is burned after harvest and the metal is
collected from the ash. Heat created while burning the hay can also be
used to create energy.
Phytomining inexpensively cleanses contaminated soil and produces a
valuable cash crop. Phytomining on contaminated soil is more lucrative
than growing traditional crops on the same land.
Harvests from low-grade pastures or forests grown on such land would
fetch about $20 to $40 US per acre per year.
But a phytomining crop growing on the same land would produce an
annual 160 kilograms of nickel per acre worth more than $810 even at
today’s depressed market price for nickel. After selling byproduct
energy, the per-acre value exceeds $1,200.
The crop can also tap vast mineral deposits unavailable through today’s
conventional mining techniques.
