Concepts for the development of new materials for biosorption processes


Concepts for the development of new materials for biosorption processes

Matys, S.; Lederer, F.; Schönberger, N.; Braun, R.; Vogel, M.; Raff, J.; Jain, R.; Schrader, S.; Pollmann, K.

Biosorption describes the capability of biomass or biomolecules to bind and concentrate metals via several functional groups. Different organisms and many biopolymers are already known for their potential to capture valuable or toxic metal ions from water streams. The directed engineering of microorganisms or biomolecules in order to modify their specificity and affinity provides a smart tool towards the development of new technologies for metal recovery in an energy and chemical-saving while environmentally friendly way. Biosorptive materials are not only attractive for bioremediation purposes, but also for the concentration and recovery of elements from recycling processes or mining waters. Currently, we are focusing on the development of new bio-sorbents based on self-assembling surface proteins (S-layers), siderophores or short peptides for the selective recovery of accompanying elements in complex copper leaching solutions, industry relevant or toxic metal ions from process water streams such as Ga or As and microparticles containing rare earth elements from compact fluorescent lamp powder. Thereby, specifically and selectively metal binding peptides for particulate materials as well as for ionic species could be identified from commercially available phage libraries using the phage surface display technique. Dependent on the length of the metal binding peptides these libraries contain a pool of phage with nearly 10^7 to 10^9 different genetically engineered peptide motifs presented at their surface. Within the French-German bilateral project “EcoMetals” with the aim of the development of innovative eco-efficient biohydrometallurgy processes for the recovery of strategic and rare metals from primary and secondary resources a phage library containing engineered heptamer peptides was used for screening of specific cobalt and nickel binding peptide motifs. In an iterative biopanning process 22 cobalt and 29 nickel binding peptide motifs could be identified. Comparative single clone binding tests were conducted to identify the strongest binding peptides. These peptides will be used as biological compounds in biosorptive composites for the specific recovery of metal ions from complex aqueous solutions. Cross binding tests revealed for most of the nickel binding phages also binding capacities for cobalt and vice versa. One which has been identified originally as the best cobalt binding phage clone showed a six times enhanced nickel binding capacity in comparison to the wild type phage, whereas the best nickel binding phage clone was able to bind eleven times more cobalt than the wild type.This contribution will give an insight into current research activities in our group focusing on the recently established phage surface display technique and discuss strategies for application directed upscaling.

Keywords: biosorption; metal recovery; phage display

  • Lecture (Conference)
    16ème édition du congrès de la Société Française de Génie des Procédés, 11.-13.07.2017, Nancy, Frankreich

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Publ.-Id: 25419