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Master theses

Interaction of desferrioxamine B and E with metal ions in competitive environment (Id 167)

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Project description
The lanthanides and other strategic elements such as Ga, In, Ge are very important for securing future energy needs as well as supply to the high-tech industry. There are no ores for such metals and these metals are always recovered as a by-product from the mining operations of other metals. Thus, it is important to recover these metals from secondary resources such as industrial wastewaters.
The challenge in the recovery of strategic metals from the wastewaters is the presence of other “unwanted” metals or contaminants. Thus, a highly selective ligand is required. Siderophores are highly selective towards Fe3+ and due to similar ionic radius, their selectivity is extended to Ga3+ as well as In3+. However, the selectivity of siderophores towards other lanthanides individually as well as in competitive environment is not known. These finding are very important to develop a process for the recovery of the strategic elements.

Working plan
The work plan will involve analyzing the interaction of strategic metal individually and in competition with desferrioxamine B and E siderophores. The interaction will be studied by means of high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), mass spectrometry (MS), isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC) experiments, infrared spectroscopy and density functional theory calculations (DFT). The student will have an opportunity to work and gain expertise on 3-4 of the above mentioned techniques.

Institute: Helmholtz Institute Freiberg for Resource Technology

Contact: Dr. Jain, Rohan, Dr. Pollmann, Katrin

Requirements

The student should have microbiology, chemistry, civil or environmental engineering background. The student should be able to communicate in English.

Conditions

Place of work will be in Dresden-Rossendorf.

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