• For German
    research organisations
  • Research landscape
  • News and research areas
  • Your goal
  • Our service
Why Germany
  • R&D policy framework
  • Research infrastructure
  • Research funding system
Universities
  • Universities of applied sciences
Research institutes
  • Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft
  • Helmholtz Association
  • Leibniz Association
  • Max-Planck-Gesellschaft
  • Academies of sciences and humanities
  • Federal institutions
  • Länder institutions
  • Research infrastructure
  • Industrial research
Industrial research
Top universities
Research News
Global Health
Bioeconomy
InnoHealth
EnergInno
Future of Work
COVID-19 in Germany
Cancer Research
Bachelor or master
PhD
  • Good reasons
  • Two ways to get your PhD
  • Find your PhD position
  • How to apply for a PhD
  • Funding programmes
  • Funding organisations
  • Funding databases
  • Job portals
Postdoc
  • Good reasons
  • Career options & dual careers
  • Funding programmes
  • Funding organisations
  • Funding databases
  • Job portals
Advanced research
  • Good reasons
  • Career options & dual careers
  • Funding & awards
  • Funding organisations
  • Funding databases
  • Job portals
Research Position
  • Find a job
  • Potential employers
  • Research fields
Events & online talks
  • Events
  • Online talks
  • Innovation Week
Research news
Newsletter
  • Subscribe
  • Newsletter 2022
  • Newsletter 2021
Our publications
Success stories
Link to German Institutions research organisations
  • Research landscape
    • Overview Research landscape
    • Why Germany
      • Overview Why Germany
      • R&D policy framework
      • Research infrastructure
        • Overview Research infrastructure
        • DESY – Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron
        • DKRZ – German Climate Computing Centre
        • Research vessel Polarstern
        • FLASH – free-electron laser in Hamburg
      • Research funding system
        • Overview Research funding system
        • Government funding
        • How does government funding work?
    • Universities
      • Overview Universities
      • Universities of applied sciences
    • Research institutes
      • Overview Research institutes
      • Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft
      • Helmholtz Association
      • Leibniz Association
      • Max-Planck-Gesellschaft
      • Academies of sciences and humanities
      • Federal institutions
      • Länder institutions
      • Research infrastructure
      • Industrial research
    • Industrial research
    • Top universities
  • News and research areas
    • Overview News and research areas
    • Research News
    • Global Health
    • Bioeconomy
    • InnoHealth
    • EnergInno
    • Future of Work
    • COVID-19 in Germany
    • Cancer Research
  • Your goal
    • Overview Your goal
    • Bachelor or master
    • PhD
      • Overview PhD
      • Good reasons
      • Two ways to get your PhD
      • Find your PhD position
      • How to apply for a PhD
      • Funding programmes
      • Funding organisations
      • Funding databases
      • Job portals
    • Postdoc
      • Overview Postdoc
      • Good reasons
      • Career options & dual careers
        • Overview Career options & dual careers
        • Professorship
        • Postdoc positions
        • Junior research group leader
        • Researcher in industry
        • Research stays and visits
        • International collaborations
        • Dual careers
      • Funding programmes
      • Funding organisations
      • Funding databases
      • Job portals
    • Advanced research
      • Overview Advanced research
      • Good reasons
      • Career options & dual careers
        • Overview Career options & dual careers
        • Professorship
        • Visiting professorship & visiting lectureship
        • Leading a research group
        • Researcher in a company
        • Research stays and visits
        • International collaborations
        • Dual careers
      • Funding & awards
      • Funding organisations
      • Funding databases
      • Job portals
    • Research Position
      • Overview Research Position
      • Find a job
      • Potential employers
      • Research fields
        • Overview Research fields
        • Agriculture
        • Architecture
        • Earth Sciences
        • Engineering
        • Forestry
        • Law
        • Logistics
        • Pharmacy
  • Our service
    • Overview Our service
    • Events & online talks
      • Overview Events & online talks
      • Events
      • Online talks
        • Overview Online talks
        • Planning your research career in germany
        • The DAAD PRIME fellowship
        • Meet the Helmholtz Association
        • Learn more about the new Erasmus+ programme for PhD students
        • Interdisciplinary research
        • Global health research
        • Digital learning
        • Meet the German Research Foundation
        • Meet the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation
        • Ask a professor
        • Postdoctoral Opportunities in Germany
        • Doctorate Opportunities in Germany
        • The German research landscape
        • Doing research in humanities
        • Women in science
        • Departmental research
        • Online talk: bioeconomy
        • Research opportunities for Indian scholars
        • Universities of Applied Sciences
        • German research clusters
        • Scientific start-ups in Germany
        • Artificial intelligence
        • Online talks for science administrators
        • Future of work
        • How is a research group structured?
        • How to do research in industry
        • Learn from first-hand experience!
        • Funding your research stay
        • Registration Process and Technical Requirements
      • Innovation Week
    • Research news
    • Newsletter
      • Overview Newsletter
      • Subscribe
      • Newsletter 2022
        • Overview Newsletter 2022
        • February 2022
        • June 2022
      • Newsletter 2021
        • Overview Newsletter 2021
        • December 2021
        • October 2021
        • August 2021
        • June 2021
        • April 2021
        • February 2021
    • Our publications
    • Success stories
  1. Home
  2. News & Research Areas
  3. Bioeconomy

Tiny heroes in urban mining

©istock/lovelyday12

An article by Dr Esther Gabor, BRAIN AG

For hundreds of years, precious metals such as gold, silver and copper have been mined from their natural deposits – from rock. Originally used as jewellery and a means of payment, today they are important stores of value, as well as the raw materials used in technology.

Over the course of the centuries, the extraction of precious metals has evolved to become an entire mining industry. Consequently, all that now remains is ore with such a low precious metal content that this method of obtaining raw materials – known as primary resources – is becoming less and less profitable for companies. Furthermore, the fact that the geological deposits are primarily found in countries other than Germany leads to a dependence in precious metal trading from which German companies are keen to free themselves. In addition, the extraction of precious metals from ore creates considerable environmental and social problems. 

One ton of ore for 40 mobile phones

So what should we do? Ever increasing quantities of precious metals and rare earths are required for electronic devices – just consider the huge numbers of mobile phones and computers needed now and in the future. To illustrate the problem, roughly one gram of gold is necessary to manufacture 40 mobile phones. To obtain this amount of gold, around one ton of ore has to be mined and processed. This costs energy and a lot of chemicals – for devices that have an average lifetime of only two and a half years. The alternative is obvious: to recover the raw materials from old devices and use them in new ones. This process of removing precious metals from waste streams and feeding them back into the production cycles to be reused is known as "urban mining". The Federal Statistical Office has calculated that each person in Germany generates ten kilograms of electronic waste on average per year. So theoretically there is no shortage of secondary resources that can be recycled.

Recycling with specialised bacteria

The idea of sustainability, which is becoming increasingly popular in politics and business, has driven forward the development of urban mining, and systems for recycling precious metals are in place in Germany.

But how is electronic waste currently recycled in Germany? By means of processes that require large amounts of energy to extract the precious metal (pyrometallurgical methods) or use substances that are harmful to health and/or the environment (especially acids and chemical extraction agents in hydrometallurgical processes).

We, that is to say scientists and engineers at the BRAIN biotech company, have developed a sustainable and biological alternative: with the aid of harmless bacteria, we are able to recover gold, for example from ground platinum waste or shredder dust (shredded and ground electronic waste). The bacteria comes from ore deposits, i.e. the natural sites where the precious metal is found. They have evolved to tolerate relatively high amounts of metals in their habitats. In fact, they have even developed the ability to dissolve gold particles, which we use to extract them in a process we call "bioextraction".

Using the process we have developed, which is suitable for recycling companies for instance, the same amount of gold can be recovered with lower carbon emissions than with conventional recycling methods. Similar biotechnological extraction processes are also conceivable in other areas: in the steel and metals industry, hundreds of millions of tons (!) of dust, sludge and ash are generated each year, all containing precious metals that could be channelled back into the production cycle.

Personally, I hope that the conventional methods of extracting gold, which release more CO2 and also have disadvantages for humans and the environment in other respects, will be increasingly replaced by biotechnological processes. This would benefit us all, and above all those countries in which toxic by-products simply end up in the environment.

©BRAIN AG

About the researcher

Dr Esther Gabor is a biotechnologist who has been working for BRAIN AG since 2005. As Green & Urban Mining programme manager, she has been responsible for developing biotechnological methods and products of metal extraction since 2016.

Further information

www.brain-biotech.com

www.umweltbundesamt.de (available only in German)

Get updates! If you want to stay informed, follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, WeChat, YouTube or via RSS and subscribe to our newsletter.

Publisher BMBF Website
Editor DAAD Website
  • Contact us
  • About us
  • Imprint
  • Data protection